Monte Carlo simulation of phase separation of A/B/A-B ternary mixtures

Monte Carlo simulations were used to model A/B/A-B ternary mixtures with di fferent AB diblock copolymer volume fractions for which both the dispersed and continuous phase volume fractions were kept constant. For concentration s of the diblock copolymer below a critical value, the domain size incremen t of the dispersed phase decreases linearly with the copolymer concentratio n. This is in agreement with the predictions of Noolandi and Hong. The depe ndence of the domain size as a function of the copolymer volume fraction ca n also be fitted by the equation of Tang and Huang. Our simulations indicat e, for the first time, that the micelles form before saturation of the inte rface occurs. This means that the formation of the micelles is not a result of the saturation of the interface.