U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research: Transition of Mean-Field to Ising Behavior of Polymer Blends

这一奖项将使纽约州立大学石溪分校的Ben Chu教授能够在两年内与日本东京工业大学的Takuhei Nose教授合作。他们将研究二元聚合物混合物的行为与二元流体混合物的行为有何不同。聚合物混合物可能至少有两种不同的行为方式，这取决于它们是只由高分子组分组成还是只由低分子组分组成，还是由溶解在小分子溶剂中的高分子组分组成。这两种行为模式之间的交叉研究将通过对一种聚合物组分使用高相对分子质量分数和通过改变第二种聚合物组分的相对分子质量来检验。对于这些不同的混合物，将使用诸如局部浓度波动和相分离性质等可测量的量来表征不同行为类型之间的交叉行为。这项研究的目的是检验聚合物体系临界现象的基本理论，并为先进聚合物材料领域提供新的知识。研究人员在聚合物解决方案、共混和临界现象方面有着共同的兴趣，并在过去访问过对方的实验室。他们在聚合物动力学方面的共同经验增加了这项工作成功的可能性。

This award will enable Prof. Ben Chu of the State University of New York at Stony Brook to collaborate with Prof. Takuhei Nose of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, over a period of two years. They will investigate how the behavior of binary polymer blends differs from that of binary fluid mixtures. Polymer blends may behave in at least two different ways, depending upon whether they consist only of high or only of low molecular weight fractions; or of high molecular weight fractions dissolved in a solvent of small molecules. Study of the cross-over between these two modes of behavior will be examined by using a high molecular weight fraction for one polymer component and by varying the molecular weight of the second polymer component. For these various blends, such measurable quantities as local concentration fluctuations and properties of phase separation will be used to characterize behavior at the cross-over between behavior types. The purposes of this research are to test the basic theory of critical phenomena for polymer systems, and to provide new knowledge in the field of advanced polymer materials. The researchers share common interests in polymer solutions, blends, and critical phenomena, and have visited each other's laboratories in the past. Their combined experience in polymer dynamics adds to the probability of success of this work.