Surface-Directed Spinodal Decomposition on Chemically Patterned Substrates

Abstract

{\it Surface-directed spinodal decomposition} (SDSD) is the kinetic interplay of phase separation and wetting at a surface. This process is of great scientific and technological importance. In this paper, we report results from a numerical study of SDSD on a chemically patterned substrate. We consider simple surface patterns for our simulations, but most of the results apply for arbitrary patterns. In layers near the surface, we observe a dynamical crossover from a {\it surface-registry regime} to a {\it phase-separation regime}. We study this crossover using layer-wise correlation functions and structure factors, and domain length scales.

19 Pages, 11 Figs, Accepted to Physical Review E

References in corpus (2)

• Crossover in Growth Law and Violation of Superuniversality in the Random Field Ising Model
• Singular Scaling Functions in Clustering Phenomena