Scaling behavior of a model of block copolymers in three dimensions

Abstract

We have studied the dynamical and equilibrium scaling behaviors of a coarse-grained model for microphase separation of block copolymers. Our numerical study has been carried out in three dimensions. We compute the power-law exponent θ characterizing the equilibrium microdomain size ${\mathit{R}}_{\mathrm{eq}}$ as a function of the molecular weight of the copolymers N as ${\mathit{R}}_{\mathrm{eq}}$∼${\mathit{N}}^{\mathrm{\theta }}$, and conclude that we are able to study the weak-segregation regime, but not the true strong-segregation regime of the model. We have also tested scaling hypotheses connecting the microdomain size and the equilibrium structure factor of the block copolymers.