THE KINETICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF PHASE-SEPARATING COPOLYMER MIXTURES

Copolymers consisting of incompatible monomer blocks undergo a microph ase separation at low temperatures. Various spatially periodic domain structures appear in the final equilibrium. A mixture of copolymers pr ovides us with more variety of domain morphology since both microphase and macrophase separations take place simultaneously. We will describ e some recent results of computer simulations of copolymer-homopolymer and copolymer-copolymer mixtures in two dimensions emphasizing a new type of pattern and a morphological transition of domains. It is also shown that the kinetics of phase separation can depend strongly on the domain morphology.