Full figure (16 kB)Fig. 1. Schematic phase diagram of ternary polymer blends A/B/AB: (a) isothermal phase diagram; the hatched areas indicate two-phase regimes; the gray triangle represents the three windows at the tip of which the bicontinuous microemulsion region is located; (b) phase diagram along an isopleth (with equal amounts of homopolymers); the total homopolymer volume fraction is plotted along the abscissa. First citation in article
Full figure (8 kB)Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the SANS experimental setup. The shear cell has Couette flow geometry with a rotating inner cylinder The beam was directed both in the radial and tangential directions. First citation in article
Full figure (21 kB)Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the flow-light scattering experimental setup. The inset is a cross-sectional view of the shear cell. First citation in article
Full figure (26 kB)Fig. 4. Dynamic frequency sweep data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 (
), 15 (
), 20 (
), 25 (
), and 30 °C (
): (a) zero-shear viscosity vs the frequency (
) and (b) phase angle vs the frequency (
). First citation in article
Full figure (27 kB)Fig. 5. Dynamic frequency sweep data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 (
), 15 (
), 20 (
), 25 (
), and 30 °C (
): (a) G
vs G
and (b) G
and G
vs the shifted frequency (aT
). The shifting in (b) was carried out by superposing the data at the high-frequency limit, with 15 °C as the reference temperature. First citation in article
Full figure (10 kB)Fig. 6. Zero-shear viscosity plotted as a function of the temperature for the PDMS homopolymer (
), the PEE homopolymer (
), and the bicontinuous microemulsion (
), along with the "solvent" viscosity (*) used with the Maxwell model for fitting the data. First citation in article
Full figure (23 kB)Fig. 7. Steady shear data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 (
), 15 (
), 20 (
), 23 (
), and 30 °C (
): (a) viscosity vs the shear rate and (b) shear stress vs the shear rate. First citation in article
Full figure (14 kB)Fig. 8. Steady shear data of the bicontinuous microemulsion at 15 °C showing four regimes as a function of the shear rate. The plot shows the viscosity (
) and shear stress (
). Data collected in the reverse direction, i.e., with decreasing rates are shown by (
) and (
), respectively. The viscosities of homopolymers PEE (
) and PDMS (*) are also plotted for comparison. First citation in article
Full figure (15 kB)Fig. 9. Steady state SANS patterns at various shear rates (T=15 °C): (a) 0 s1, (b) 0.316, (c) 3.16, (d) 10, (e) 31.6, and (f) 316 s1. The direction of flow is horizontal. The small boxes in (a) indicate the pixels used for calculating the anisotropy and phase-separation indices. The former is defined as 2B/(A+B) and the latter as C(
)/C(
=0). First citation in article
Full figure (24 kB)Fig. 10. Neutron scattering data analysis: (a) anisotropy index vs the shear rate, (b) phase-separation index vs the shear rate, and (c) indices vs the shifted shear rate at 15 (
), 20 (
), 25 (
), 30 (
), 35 (
), 40 (+), and 45 °C (×). The shifting in (c) was carried out by superimposing the data at the high shear rate limit and using 15 °C as the reference temperature. First citation in article
Full figure (12 kB)Fig. 11. Steady state light scattering patterns at various shear rates (T=15 °C). The center dark region is due to the beamstop. The direction of flow is vertical. First citation in article
Full figure (14 kB)Fig. 12. Real-space steady state images of the bicontinuous microemulsion under shear at various shear rates (T=15 °C). The images have the same scale of intensity and become progressively darker with an increase in shear rate because of higher sample turbidity. The direction of flow is vertical. First citation in article
Full figure (17 kB)Fig. 13. Microscopy images of structural relaxation after cessation of shear flow at (a) 7.5 s1 (regime III) and (b) 150 s1 (regime IV). The numbers at top left-hand corner indicate the time after the cessation of shear. The intensity scale is same for all the images. The direction of flow is vertical. First citation in article
Full figure (17 kB)Fig. 14. Schematic representation of the morphology in the four regimes: I Newtonian regime, II development of anisotropy, III three-phase coexistence after the onset of phase separation, and IV binary blend-like behavior. The block copolymer is dispersed as micelles in the homopolymer-rich domains in regime IV. First citation in article