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

The collective scattering function S_coll( ), which describes light (neutron-, x-ray) scattering under wavevector , is obtained from Monte Carlo simulations for a symmetrical polymer mixture. The polymers are modelled by self-avoiding walks ofN _A=N_B=N steps on a simple cubic lattice, where a fraction _V of sites is left vacant, and an attractive energy occurs if two neighboring sites are taken by the same kind of monomer. Spinodal curves are estimated from linear extrapolation of S _coll ^–1 (0) vs./k _B T, 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-Huggins-parameter from scattering data is also discussed.Contributed paper delivered at the Tagung der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft, Fachausschuß Polymerphysik, Hamburg, March 14–16, 1987.