Convergence of phase-field approximations to the Gibbs-Thomson law

We prove the convergence of phase-field approximations of the Gibbs-Thomson law. This establishes a relation between the first variation of the Van-der-Waals-Cahn-Hilliard energy and the first variation of the area functional. We allow for folding of diffuse interfaces in the limit and the occurrence of higher-multiplicities of the limit energy measures. We show that the multiplicity does not affect the Gibbs-Thomson law and that the mean curvature vanishes where diffuse interfaces have collided. We apply our results to prove the convergence of stationary points of the Cahn-Hilliard equation to constant mean curvature surfaces and the convergence of stationary points of an energy functional that was proposed by Ohta-Kawasaki as a model for micro-phase separation in block-copolymers.Comment: 25 page

Small Volume Fraction Limit of the Diblock Copolymer Problem: I. Sharp Interface Functional

We present the first of two articles on the small volume fraction limit of a nonlocal Cahn-Hilliard functional introduced to model microphase separation of diblock copolymers. Here we focus attention on the sharp-interface version of the functional and consider a limit in which the volume fraction tends to zero but the number of minority phases (called particles) remains O(1). Using the language of Gamma-convergence, we focus on two levels of this convergence, and derive first and second order effective energies, whose energy landscapes are simpler and more transparent. These limiting energies are only finite on weighted sums of delta functions, corresponding to the concentration of mass into `point particles'. At the highest level, the effective energy is entirely local and contains information about the structure of each particle but no information about their spatial distribution. At the next level we encounter a Coulomb-like interaction between the particles, which is responsible for the pattern formation. We present the results here in both three and two dimensions.Comment: 37 pages, 1 figur

Copolymer-homopolymer blends: global energy minimisation and global energy bounds

We study a variational model for a diblock-copolymer/homopolymer blend. The energy functional is a sharp-interface limit of a generalisation of the Ohta-Kawasaki energy. In one dimension, on the real line and on the torus, we prove existence of minimisers of this functional and we describe in complete detail the structure and energy of stationary points. Furthermore we characterise the conditions under which the minimisers may be non-unique. In higher dimensions we construct lower and upper bounds on the energy of minimisers, and explicitly compute the energy of spherically symmetric configurations.Comment: 31 pages, 6 Postscript figures; to be published in Calc. Var. Partial Differential Equations. Version history: Changes in v2 w.r.t v1 only concern metadata. V3 contains some minor revisions and additions w.r.t. v2. V4 corrects a confusing typo in one of the formulas of the appendix. V5 is the definitive version that will appear in prin

Stability of monolayers and bilayers in a copolymer-homopolymer blend model

We study the stability of layered structures in a variational model for diblock copolymer-homopolymer blends. The main step consists of calculating the first and second derivative of a sharp-interface Ohta-Kawasaki energy for straight mono- and bilayers. By developing the interface perturbations in a Fourier series we fully characterise the stability of the structures in terms of the energy parameters. In the course of our computations we also give the Green's function for the Laplacian on a periodic strip and explain the heuristic method by which we found it.Comment: 40 pages, 34 Postscript figures; second version has some minor corrections; to appear in "Interfaces and Free Boundaries

Computer-assisted proof of heteroclinic connections in the one-dimensional Ohta-Kawasaki model

We present a computer-assisted proof of heteroclinic connections in the one-dimensional Ohta-Kawasaki model of diblock copolymers. The model is a fourth-order parabolic partial differential equation subject to homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, which contains as a special case the celebrated Cahn-Hilliard equation. While the attractor structure of the latter model is completely understood for one-dimensional domains, the diblock copolymer extension exhibits considerably richer long-term dynamical behavior, which includes a high level of multistability. In this paper, we establish the existence of certain heteroclinic connections between the homogeneous equilibrium state, which represents a perfect copolymer mixture, and all local and global energy minimizers. In this way, we show that not every solution originating near the homogeneous state will converge to the global energy minimizer, but rather is trapped by a stable state with higher energy. This phenomenon can not be observed in the one-dimensional Cahn-Hillard equation, where generic solutions are attracted by a global minimizer

EXISTENCE AND STABILITY OF SPHERICALLY LAYERED SOLUTIONS OF THE DIBLOCK COPOLYMER EQUATION ∗

Abstract. The relatively simple Ohta–Kawasaki density functional theory for diblock copolymer melts allows us to construct and analyze exact solutions to the Euler–Lagrange equation by singular perturbation techniques. First, we consider a solution of a single sphere pattern that models a cell in the spherical morphology. We show the existence of the sphere pattern and find a stability threshold, so that if the sphere is larger than the threshold value, the sphere pattern becomes unstable. Next we study a spherical lamellar pattern, which may be regarded as a defective lamellar pattern. We reduce the existence and the stability problems to some finite dimensional problems which are accurately solved with the help of a computer. We find two thresholds. Only when the size of the sample is larger than the first threshold value does a spherical lamellar pattern exist. This patten is stable only when the size of the sample is less than the second threshold value. As the stability of the spherical lamellar pattern changes at the second threshold, a bifurcating branch with a pattern of wriggled spherical interfaces appears. The free energy of the latter pattern is lower than that of the first pattern. A similar bifurcation phenomenon also occurs in the single sphere pattern at its stability threshold. Key words. Ohta–Kawasaki diblock copolymer theory, sphere pattern, optimal size, spherical lamellar pattern, existence threshold, stability threshold, bifurcation, wriggled sphere pattern, wriggled spherical lamellar pattern AMS subject classifications. 34E05, 82D60 DOI. 10.1137/04061877