Related papers: Spinodal-assisted crystallization in polymer melts
Colloid-polymer mixtures can undergo spinodal decomposition into colloid-rich and colloid-poor regions. Gelation results when interconnected colloid-rich regions solidify. We show that this occurs when these regions undergo a glass…
We study the possibility of the spinodal decomposition in the induction period of the polymer crystallization. This phenomenon was first reported in an X-ray scattering experiment, and has still been controversial due to various experiments…
We combine experiments and simulations to study the link between criticality and gelation in sticky spheres. We employ confocal microscopy to image colloid-polymer mixtures, and Monte Carlo simulations of the square-well (SW) potential as a…
Polymeric particles are strong candidates for designing artificial materials capable of emulating the complex twisting-based functionality observed in biological systems. In this letter, we provide the first detailed investigation of the…
We use molecular dynamics (MD) to simulate an unstable homogeneous mixture of binary fluids (AB), confined in a slit pore of width $D$. The pore walls are assumed to be flat and structureless, and attract one component of the mixture (A)…
We systematically study the relationship between equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase diagrams of a system of short-ranged attractive colloids. Using Monte Carlo and Brownian dynamics simulations we find a window of enhanced…
Polymer blends offer an exciting material for various potential applications due to their tunable properties by varying constituting components and their relative composition. Our simulation results unravel an intrinsic relationship between…
Spinodal decomposition in a near-critical binary fluid is examined for experimental scenarios in which the liquid is quenched abruptly by changing the pressure and the subsequent phase separation occurs with no heat flow from the outside,…
We have used mesoscale simulations to study the effect of immobile particles on microstructure formation during spinodal decomposition in ternary mixtures such as polymer blends. Specifically, we have explored a regime of interparticle…
The possibilities to tune the structure of solid like material resulting from arrested spinodal decomposition is investigated using a system composed of lysozyme, a globular protein, dispersed in a water solution as model system for…
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…
A striking feature of the collective behavior of spherical microswimmers is that for sufficiently strong self-propulsion they phase-separate into a dense cluster coexisting with a low-density dis- ordered surrounding. Extending our previous…
Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for a polymer melt. In quiescent states, the inter-chain interaction energy supported by each particle takes relatively large values persistently for long times if the particle is close to an…
We study dewetting of thin polymer films with built-in topographical fluctuations produced by rubbing the film surface with a rayon cloth. By varying the density of imposed surface defects, we unambiguously distinguish spinodal dewetting,…
Concentrated aqueous solutions of the protein lysozyme undergo a liquid solid transition upon a temperature quench into the unstable spinodal region below a characteristic arrest temperature of Tf=15C. We use video microscopy and…
Partially phase-separated liquid-crystal/polymer dispersions display highly fibrillar domain morphologies that are dramatically different from the typical structures found in isotropic mixtures. To explain this, we numerically explore the…
Spin coating is an out-of-equilibrium technique for producing polymer films and colloidal crystals quickly and reproducibly. In this review, we present an overview of theoretical and experimental studies of the spin coating of colloidal…
By extending the Sanchez-Lacombe lattice-fluid model for mixtures to the case of polymer blends containing solid fillers, we calculate the excess thermodynamic quantities arising from the presence of fillers. These results are then used to…
Crystallization within the discrete spheres of a block copolymer mesophase was studied by time-resolved x-ray scattering. The cubic packing of microdomains, established by self-assembly in the melt, is preserved throughout crystallization…
In this paper, we report dynamic Monte Carlo simulation results on the crystallization of crystalline/crystalline (A/B) symmetric binary polymer blend, wherein the melting temperature of A-polymer is higher than B-polymer. Crystallization…