Properties of polymer blends and triblock copolymers obtained by neutron scattering

Static and dynamic scattering properties of polymer blends and block copolymers are examined within the random phase approximation (RPA). A self-consistent theoretical scheme for a simultaneous analysis of elastic and quasielastic scattering data is presented. The case of a triblock copolymer made of an ordinary central block and two deuterated lateral blocks in a matrix of deuterated homopolymers is considered in detail. The theoretical predictions of the RPA are compared with the experimental data obtained by elastic neutron scattering experiments using mixtures of deuterated poly(dimethylsiloxane) homopolymers and copolymers made of three blocks of approximately equal sizes. The lateral blocks are deuterated poly(dimethylsiloxane) and the central one is an ordinary poly(dimethylsiloxane). A good agreement is found in the whole range of wavevectors covered by the experiments. An extension of the RPA to the analysis of the dynamical scattering data for the same systems is put forward. It is shown how the time relaxations of the bare response functions obtained from the single chain dynamics are used to extract the intermediate scattering function characterizing the system of interacting chains. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.