Theory for dynamical self arrest and gelation in microemulsions and the block copolymer systems

Abstract

The main purpose of this work is to investigate the glassy behavior of microemulsions and block copolymers. The origin of glassy behavior in microemulsions and block copolymers is frustration due to a competition between short-range interaction and long range interaction. According to the charge frustrated Ising model, the competition between ferromagnetic interaction and antiferromagnetic interaction is the origin of frustration in microemulsions. The competition between entropic effects and stoichiometric constraints responsible for the formation of micelles in microemulsions can lead to the emergence of a self generated glassy behavior in these systems. In the block copolymer, the competition between the repulsive short range interaction between monomers in polymer chains and the long range interaction by chemical bonds can lead to the emergence of a self generated glassy behavior. The criteria for the fluctuation induced first order transition and our microemulsion and block copolymer glasses are essentially the same. Both are a consequence of the large phase space of low energy excitations (14) (62) (all states with momenta q which fulfill |q| = qm) and are of at the most a moderate supercooling of the liquid state is required. This is strongly supported by the observation in Ref. (14) that the metastable states which are first to appear at a fluctuation induced first order transition are the ones build by a superposition of large amplitude waves of wavenumber qm, but with random orientations and phases, i.e. just the ones which form the metastable states of our microemulsion and block copolymer glass. (38)