Phase separation of a polymer blend driven by oscillating particles.
We study the possible formation of ordered structures of a binary polymer blend by introducing mobile particles in a periodically oscillating driving field. The particles which have a preferential attraction to one of the immiscible phases, will significantly perturb the phase separation of the system and breakup the isotropy of the system, so that some interesting structures such as lamellar and cylinder phases are observed by appropriate selection of the simulation parameters. We examine in detail the dependence of formed morphology and domain size on the oscillating fields, the relative composition of mixtures, the diffusion coefficient, and quench depth, and then discuss how to realize stable and highly ordered structures.
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