MIDIT OFD CATS Modelling, Nonlinear Dynamics Optics and Fluid Dynamics Chaos and Turbulence Studies and Irreversible Thermodynamics Risø National Laboratory Niels Bohr Institute and Technical University of Denmark Building 128 Department of Chemistry Building 321 P.O. Box 49 University of Copenhagen DK-2800 Lyngby DK-4000 Roskilde DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø Denmark Denmark Denmark
by Prof. M. Laradji
Department of Physics,
University of Prince Edward Island,
Canada
Thursday August 13, 1998, 15.15 h (Coffee at 15.00)
at Department of Chemistry, Building 206, room 250
Abstract: The elastic properties of homopolymer-homopolymer interfaces containing diblock copolymers are investigated by means of self-consistent theory of anisotropic fluctuations. We will show that in the limiting case of a pure binary homopolymer mixture, while the interfacial tension increases monotonically with increasing X N (X is the Flory-Huggins parameter, N is the homopolymer molecular wieigh), the bending rigidity increses rapidly for small values of X N, but then decreases for further increase of X N. In the presence of diblock copolymers, the interfacial tension always decreases with increasing diblock copolymer volume fraction at a given X N, however, the bending rigidity can show either a decrease or an increase. We will further compare our results with results based on scaling arguments for wet polymer brushes.