Scattering from concentration fluctuations in polymer blends: A monte carlo investigation

AbstractThe collective scattering function Scoll( $$\vec q$$ ), which describes light (neutron-, x-ray) scattering under wavevector $$\vec q$$ , is obtained from Monte Carlo simulations for a symmetrical polymer mixture. The polymers are modelled by self-avoiding walks ofNA=NB=N steps on a simple cubic lattice, where a fractionφV of sites is left vacant, and an attractive energyε occurs if two neighboring sites are taken by the same kind of monomer. Spinodal curves are estimated from linear extrapolation of Scoll−1(0) vs.ε/kBT, whereT is the temperature. Also the single chain structure factor is obtained and the de Gennes random phase approximation (RPA) can thus be tested. Unexpectedly, strong deviations are found if one species is very dilute. The estimation of an effective Flory-Hugginsχ-parameter from scattering data is also discussed.

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