Spinodal decomposition in isotopic polymer mixtures

Abstract

Spinodal decomposition of a critical binary mixture of perdeuterated and protonated polymers has been examined by light scattering. Reduction of the characteristic composition fluctuation length (i.e., scattering peak wave vector) and time, based on independently verified scaling parameters obtained from early-stage linear analyses, fails to collapse the intermediate-stage results onto a universal curve. This is the first demonstrated violation of the universal scaling of time and length during spinodal decomposition.