Gravity effects on lamellar pattern formation in confined systems Original Research Article

The microphase separation of a diblock copolymer melt in the presence of a gravitational field is simulated by means of a cell dynamical system model. It is found that the presence of hard walls normal to the gravitational field is important to the formation of well ordered lamellae. Furthermore, it is found that the formation of lamellae parallel to the hard boundaries and normal to the field correspond to the stable configuration and that the field increases the interface width in the bulk, but the lamella in contact with the substrate is strongly segregated.