NETWORK-LIKE PATTERN-FORMATION IN PHASE-SEPARATING POLYMER-SOLUTIONS - A MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY

The dynamics of phase separation of a quenched polymer solution is stu died using a stochastic molecular dynamics simulation. At early times, the elastic nature of the polymer chains generates a networklike doma in morphology for sufficiently dense polymer solutions. However, at la te times, this network structure breaks up into disconnected polymer-r ich domains to minimize the interfacial energy. Our simulations explai n why different experiments carried out to different time regimes seem to produce contradictory results, and strongly indicate that the tore late-time growth kinetics of quenched polymer solutions belong to the same universality class of small molecular mixtures.