Issue 4, 2007

Scaling behavior of the reorientation kinetics of block copolymers exposed to electric fields

Abstract

We have followed the reorientation kinetics of various block copolymer solutions exposed to an external electric DC field. The characteristic time constants follow a power law indicating that the reorientation is driven by a decrease in electrostatic energy. Moreover, the observed exponent suggests an activated process in line with the expectations for a nucleation and growth process. When properly scaled, the data collapse onto a single master curve spanning several orders of magnitude both in reduced time and in reduced energy. The power law dependence of the rate of reorientation derived from computer simulations based on dynamic density functional theory agrees well with the experimental observations. First experiments in AC electric fields at sufficiently high frequencies confirm the notion that the reorientation process is dominated by differences in the dielectric constants rather than by mobile ions.

Graphical abstract: Scaling behavior of the reorientation kinetics of block copolymers exposed to electric fields

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
28 Sep 2006
Accepted
24 Nov 2006
First published
20 Dec 2006

Soft Matter, 2007,3, 448-453

Scaling behavior of the reorientation kinetics of block copolymers exposed to electric fields

K. Schmidt, H. G. Schoberth, F. Schubert, H. Hänsel, F. Fischer, T. M. Weiss, G. J. A. Sevink, A. V. Zvelindovsky, A. Böker and G. Krausch, Soft Matter, 2007, 3, 448 DOI: 10.1039/B614143A

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