Related papers: Theory of Microphase Separation in Elastomers
Mechanical deformation of amorphous solids can be described as consisting of an elastic part in which the stress increases linearly with strain, up to a yield point at which the solid either fractures or starts deforming plastically. It is…
Bicontinuous microstructures are essential to the function of diverse natural and synthetic systems. Their synthesis has been based on two approaches: arrested phase separation or self-assembly of block copolymers. The former is attractive…
Microphase separated structure consisting of the periodic alternation of the layers of stretched homopolymer chains surrounded by perpendicularly oriented oligomeric tails is studied for both, strongly bonded (ionic) systems and weakly…
By analytically solving some simple models of phase-ordering kinetics, we suggest a mechanism for the onset of non-equilibrium behaviour in colloid-polymer mixtures. These mixtures can function as models of atomic systems; their physics…
When two types of side chains (A,B) are densely grafted to a (stiff) backbone and the resulting bottle-brush polymer is in a solution under poor solvent conditions, an incompatibility between A and B leads to microphase separation in the…
We present a generalized theory of microphase separation for charged-neutral diblock copolymer melt. Stability limit of the disordered phase for salt-free melt has been calculated using Random Phase Approximation (RPA) and self-consistent…
The self-organization of proteins into enriched compartments and the formation of complex patterns are crucial processes for life on the cellular level. Liquid-liquid phase separation is one mechanism for forming such enriched compartments.…
We present a numerical study of stretching monodomain smectic-A elastomer sheets, computed using the finite element method. When stretched parallel to the layer normal the microscopic layers in smectic elastomers are unstable to a…
Elastomeric materials display a complicated set of stretchability and fracture properties that strongly depend on the flaw size, which has long been of interest to engineers and materials scientists. Here, we combine experiments and…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization, with evidence for it being reported in numerous different systems. However, there is a growing concern regarding the lack of…
In this study we use non-equilibrium thermodynamics to systematically derive a phase-field model of a polyelectrolyte gel coupled to a hydrodynamic model for a salt solution surrounding the gel. The governing equations for the gel account…
This paper presents the derivation of the homogenized equations that describe the macroscopic mechanical response of elastomers filled with liquid inclusions in the setting of small quasistatic deformations. The derivation is carried out…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
The equilibrium amorphous solid state -- formed, e.g., by adequately randomly crosslinking the constituents of a macromolecular fluid -- is a heterogeneous state characterized by a universal distribution of particle localization lengths.…
Biological mixtures such as the cytosol may consist of thousands of distinct components. There is now a substantial body of evidence showing that, under physiological conditions, intracellular mixtures can phase separate into spatially…
We present a theoretical model for predicting the phase behavior of polymer solutions in which phase separation competes with oligomerization. Specifically, we consider scenarios in which the assembly of polymer chains into stoichiometric…
We present studies of the atomic limit of the extended Hubbard model with pair hopping for arbitrary electron density and arbitrary chemical potential. The Hamiltonian consists of (i) the effective on-site interaction $U$ and (ii) the…
Phase separation in the Hubbard model is investigated with the dynamical cluster approximation. We find that it is present in the paramagnetic solution for values of filling smaller than one and at finite temperature when a positive…
A phase field model of a crystalline material at the mesoscale is introduced to develop the necessary theoretical framework to study plastic flow due to dislocation motion. We first obtain the elastic stress from the phase field free energy…