Phase transformations in soft matter mixtures under coupled phase ordering and phase separation: effect of metastable phases

EZEQUIEL R. SOULÉ; CYRILLE LAVIGNE; LINDA REVEN; ALEJANDRO D. REY

Boston

Conferencia; MRS 2011 fall meeting; 2011

Materials Research Society

In this work we simulate one-dimensional dynamics of the phase separation – phase ordering process in binary soft materials, with coupled conserved and non-conserved order parameters. The conserved order parameter is the concentration of the mixture, while the non-conserved order parameter (NCOP) represents an ordered phase. Systems with one and two NCOPs (in addition to concentration) are analyzed, depending if one or both components are capable of forming ordered phases. A mixture of a polymer and a nematic liquid crystal is used as one NCOP system, and a mixture of nanoparticles capable of forming colloidal crystals, and a nematic liquid crystal is the two NCOP system. The interaction parameters are selected such that the isotropic-isotropic (I-I) phase equilibrium is buried bellow the nematic-isotropic equilibrium, so I-I phase separation is metastable.