Dynamics of pattern coarsening in a two-dimensional smectic system

HARRISON CK; CHENG ZD; SETHURAMAN S; HUSE DA; CHAIKIN PM; VEGA DA; SEBASTIAN JM; REGISTER RA; ADAMSON DH

PHYSICAL REVIEW E - STATISTICAL PHYSICS, PLASMAS, FLUIDS AND RELATED INTERDISCIPLINARY TOPICS

American Physical Society

Lugar: USA; Año: 2002 vol. 66 p. 117061 - 1170627

1063-651X

We have followed the coarsening dynamics of a single layer of cylindrical block copolymer microdomains in a thin film. This system has the symmetry of a two-dimensional smectic. The orientational correlation length of the microdomains was measured by scanning electron microscopy and found to grow with the average spacing between +/-1/2 disclinations, following a power law xi(2)(t)similar tot(1/4). By tracking disclinations during annealing with time-lapse atomic force microscopy, we observe dominant mechanisms of disclination annihilation involving tripoles and quadrupoles (three and four disclinations, respectively). We describe how annihilation events involving multiple disclinations result in similarly reduced kinetic exponents as observed here. These results map onto a wide variety of physical systems that exhibit similarly striped patterns.