Journal of Rheology, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 529–554, March 2002
©2002 The Society of Rheology. All rights reserved.

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FIGURES


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Fig. 1. Schematic phase diagram of ternary polymer blends A/B/A–B: (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


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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


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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


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Fig. 4. Dynamic frequency sweep data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 ([square, solid]), 15 ([bullet]), 20 ([solid triangle]), 25 ([dn tri, filled]), and 30 °C ([solid diamond]): (a) zero-shear viscosity vs the frequency (omega) and (b) phase angle vs the frequency (omega). First citation in article


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Fig. 5. Dynamic frequency sweep data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 ([square, solid]), 15 ([bullet]), 20 ([solid triangle]), 25 ([dn tri, filled]), and 30 °C ([solid diamond]): (a) G[prime] vs G[double-prime] and (b) G[prime] and G[double-prime] vs the shifted frequency (aTomega). 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


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Fig. 6. Zero-shear viscosity plotted as a function of the temperature for the PDMS homopolymer ([solid diamond]), the PEE homopolymer ([square, solid]), and the bicontinuous microemulsion ([solid triangle]), along with the "solvent" viscosity (*) used with the Maxwell model for fitting the data. First citation in article


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Fig. 7. Steady shear data on bicontinuous microemulsion at 10 ([square, solid]), 15 ([bullet]), 20 ([solid triangle]), 23 ([dn tri, filled]), and 30 °C ([solid diamond]): (a) viscosity vs the shear rate and (b) shear stress vs the shear rate. First citation in article


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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 ([square, solid]) and shear stress ([bullet]). Data collected in the reverse direction, i.e., with decreasing rates are shown by ([square, open]) and ([open circle]), respectively. The viscosities of homopolymers PEE ([open triangle]) and PDMS (*) are also plotted for comparison. First citation in article


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Fig. 9. Steady state SANS patterns at various shear rates (T=15 °C): (a) 0 s–1, (b) 0.316, (c) 3.16, (d) 10, (e) 31.6, and (f) 316 s–1. 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(<i>gamma</i>-dot)/C(<i>gamma</i>-dot =0). First citation in article


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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 ([square, solid]), 20 ([bullet]), 25 ([open triangle]), 30 ([dn tri, filled]), 35 ([solid diamond]), 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


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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


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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


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Fig. 13. Microscopy images of structural relaxation after cessation of shear flow at (a) 7.5 s–1 (regime III) and (b) 150 s–1 (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


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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


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