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UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN);
Department of Chemical Engineering; Department of Physics & Astronomy
Prof. Mark W. Matsen
Developments in self-consistent field theory
The development of SCFT [1,2] has been a major interest of mine over the years. The theory permits exact mean-field calculations for block copolymer melts and blends using coarse-grained microscopic models. It is a tremendous improvement over previous approaches and has been rewarded by a series of remarkable successes. This theory has been able to properly model very subtle effects, predict behaviour later to be confirmed by experiment, correct major experimental errors, and play a vital role in experimental studies. Because of its microscopic nature, SCFT is highly predictive and it allows access to many quantities that experiments cannot measure. As a result, SCFT routinely provides simple intuitive explanations for its predictions. SCFT has proven to be one of the most successful theories in condensed matter physics.
The generic system used to test SCFT is the simple diblock copolymer melt; the figure to the right shows the most upto date SCFT phase diagram for this system. The diagram was calculated using a spectral algorithm [3], which is so-far the most efficient numerical method when dealing with the periodically-ordered morphologies exhibited by bulk materials. However, in situations where there is no such symmetry, pseudo-spectral algorithms [4] become more efficient.
References
[1] M. W. Matsen, The standard Gaussian model for block copolymer melts, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14, R21 (2002). pdf
[2] M. W. Matsen, Self-consistent field theory and its applications, In Soft Matter, Volume 1: Polymer Melts and Mixtures, Edited by G. Gompper and M. Schick (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2006). pdf
[3] M. W. Matsen, Fast and accurate SCFT calculations for periodic block-copolymer morphologies using the spectral method with Anderson mixing, Eur. Phys. J. E 30 , 361 (2009). pdf
[4] P. Stasiak and M. W. Matsen, Efficiency of pseudo-spectral algorithms with Anderson mixing for the SCFT of periodic block-copolymer phases, Eur. Phys. J. E 34 , 110 (2011). pdf
Updated: March 2014