Non-monotonous crossover between capillary condensation and interface localisation/delocalisation transition in binary polymer blends

Abstract

Within self-consistent field theory we study the phase behaviour of a symmetric binary AB polymer blend confined into a thin film. The film surfaces interact with the monomers via short range potentials. One surface attracts the A component and the corresponding semi-infinite system exhibits a first order wetting transition. The surface interaction of the opposite surface is varied as to study the crossover from capillary condensation for symmetric surface fields to the interface localisation/delocalisation transition for antisymmetric surface fields. In the former case the phase diagram has a single critical point close to the bulk critical point. In the latter case the phase diagram exhibits two critical points which correspond to the prewetting critical points of the semi-infinite system. The crossover between these qualitatively different limiting behaviours occurs gradually, however, the critical temperature and the critical composition exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on the surface field.

to appear in Europhys.Lett

References in corpus (2)

• Symmetric Diblock Copolymers in Thin Films (I): Phase stability in Self-Consistent Field Calculations and Monte Carlo Simulations
• Finite size effects on the phase diagram of a binary mixture confined between competing walls

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Kinetics of Phase Separation in Thin Films: Simulations for the Diffusive Case
• A symmetric polymer blend confined into a film with antisymmetric surfaces: interplay between wetting behavior and phase diagram
• Interface localisation-delocalisation transition in a symmetric polymer blend: a finite-size scaling Monte Carlo study
• A Monte Carlo Test of the Fisher-Nakanishi-Scaling Theory for the Capillary Condensation Critical Point
• The phase behaviour and structure of a fluid confined between competing (solvophobic and solvophilic) walls
• Irreversible growth of a binary mixture confined in a thin film geometry with competing walls
• From Capillary Condensation to Interface Localization Transitions in Colloid Polymer Mixtures Confined in Thin Film Geometry
• Density functional theory study of the nematic-isotropic transition in an hybrid cell
• Phase transitions in nanosystems caused by interface motion: The Ising bi-pyramid with competing surface fields
• Kinetics of Phase Separation in Thin Films: Lattice versus Continuum Models for Solid Binary Mixtures