Control of structure formation in phase-separating systems

Abstract

In this paper, we study the evolution of phase-separating binary mixtures which are subjected to alternate cooling and heating cycles. An initially homogeneous mixture is rapidly quenched to a temperature T₁<T_c, where T_c is the critical temperature. The mixture undergoes phase separation for a while and is then suddenly heated to a temperature T₂>T_c. These cycles are repeated to create a domain morphology with multiple length scales, i.e., the structure factor is characterized by multiple peaks. For phase separation in d = 2 systems, we present numerical and analytical results for the emergence and growth of this multiple-scale morphology.