Quantification of Deformation-Induced Concentration Fluctuations in Polymeric Liquids

Published

April 13, 2021

Author(s)

Yangyang Wang, Weiyu Wang, Kunlun Hong, Yun Liu

Abstract

This study demonstrates how the large concentration fluctuations of polymeric liquids under deformation and flow can be quantitatively studied by applying the spherical harmonic expansion technique to small-angle neutron scattering. Using a series of binary polymer blends, it is shown that the emergence of the so-called butterfly patterns is caused by the change of sign in the leading anisotropic component of the small-angle spectrum, when the scattering is dominated by intermolecular correlation associated with flow-induced demixing. The increasing spatial fluctuations of concentration are evidenced by the enhancement of the isotropic component of the scattering spectrum in the zero-angle limit and peak shift of the leading anisotropic coefficients towards low Q. Additionally, the spherical harmonic expansion framework permits real-space analysis of anisotropic scattering length density correlation in a convenient form. The methodology described in this work provides a concrete venue for quantitative studies of phase transitions of fluids under deformation and flow via small-angle scattering techniques, where mainly qualitative approaches were previously employed.

Citation

Macromolecules

Volume

54

Issue

7

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

polymer, sans, stretching, spherical harmonic expansion, flow

Citation

Wang, Y. , Wang, W. , Hong, K. and Liu, Y. (2021), Quantification of Deformation-Induced Concentration Fluctuations in Polymeric Liquids, Macromolecules, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=931997 (Accessed November 13, 2025)