Related papers: Lamellae Stability in Confined Systems with Gravit…
The dynamics of microphase separation and the orientation of lamellae in diblock copolymers is investigated in terms of a mean-field model. The formation of lamellar structures and their stable states are explored and it is shown that…
Mixtures of near-symmetric oppositely charged components with strong attractive short range interactions exhibit ordered lamellar phases at low temperatures. In the strong segregation limit the state of these systems can be described by the…
Thin films of diblock copolymer subject to gravitational field are simulated by means of a cell dynamical system model. The difference in density of the two sides of the molecule and the presence of the field causes the formation of…
We present numerical calculations of lamellar phases of di-block copolymers (BCP) confined between two surfaces, where the top surface is flat and the bottom one is corrugated. The corrugated substrate is assumed to have a single $q$-mode…
We investigate the ground state of a classical two-dimensional system of hard-sphere dipoles confined between two hard walls. Using lattice sum minimization techniques we reveal that at fixed wall separations, a first-order transition from…
The formation of chain-folded structures from the melt is observed in molecular dynamics simulations resembling the lamellae of polymer crystals. Crystallization and subsequent melting temperatures are related linearly to the inverse…
We examine the alignment of thin film diblock copolymers subject to a perpendicular electric field. Two regimes are considered separately: weak segregation and strong segregation. For weakly segregated blocks, below a critical value of the…
The dynamics of a system composed of inelastic hard spheres or disks that are confined between two parallel vertically vibrating walls is studied (the vertical direction is defined as the direction perpendicular to the walls). The distance…
We study morphologies of thin-film diblock copolymers between two flat and parallel walls. The study is restricted to the weak segregation regime below the order-disorder transition temperature. The deviation from perfect lamellar shape is…
We investigate the phase behavior of symmetric AB diblock copolymers confined into a thin film. The film boundaries are parallel, impenetrable and attract the A component of the diblock copolymer. Using a self-consistent field technique…
We present several ordering mechanisms in diblock copolymers. For temperatures above the order-disorder temperature and in the weak segregation regime, a linear response theory is presented which gives the polymer density in the vicinity of…
We extensively study the phase diagram of a diblock copolymer melt confined in a cylindrical nanopore using real-space self-consistent mean-field theory. We discover a rich variety of new two-dimensional equilibrium structures that have no…
A light-weight "inflatable" tensioned-membrane-structure vacuum container is proposed and its stability is analyzed. The proposed structure consists of a pressurized lobed cylindrical "wall" surrounding a central evacuated space. Stability…
We investigate the effects of chain flexibility on the self-assembly behavior of symmetric diblock copolymers (BCPs) when they are confined as a thin film between two surfaces. Employing worm-like chain (WLC) self-consistent field theory,…
The phase-field method has become in recent years the method of choice for simulating microstructural pattern formation during solidification. One of its main advantages is that time-dependent three-dimensional simulations become feasible.…
The fluctuation pressure of a lipid-bilayer membrane is important for the stability of lamellar phases and the adhesion of membranes to surfaces. In contrast to many theoretical studies, which predict a decrease of the pressure with the…
We investigate the dynamics of an ensemble of inelastic hard spheres confined between two horizontal plates separated a distance smaller than twice the diameter of the particles, in such a way that the system is quasi-two-dimensional. The…
Systems in which particles can self-assemble into mono- or bilayers can form variety of stable and metastable structures on a nanometer length scale. For this reason confinement has a particularly strong effect on such systems. We discuss…
A phenomenological mean-field theory is used to investigate the properties of solvent-diluted di-block copolymers (BCP), in which the two BCP components (A and B) form a variety of phases that are diluted by a solvent (S). Using this…
Block copolymer (BCP) melts play a critical role in the design of thermoplastics, owing in large part to the creation of alternating nano-scale domains of soft and stiff components. Considerable attention has been given to the…