Compatibilizing A/B blends with AB diblock copolymers: Effect of copolymer molecular weight

We use numerical self-consistent field (SCF) calculations to determine the interfacial behavior of AB diblocks in a blend of immiscible homopolymers, A and B. In particular, we compare the compatibilizing effect of relatively short and long AB copolymers. In the calculations, we explicitly take into account the formation of micellar or multilamellar phases. The results show that the interfacial tension can be reduced to zero only if the blocks in the diblock are longer than the corresponding homopolymer. Our two-dimensional SCF calculations reveal that short diblocks form multilamellar structures in the blend, whereas a microemulsion is formed when relatively long copolymers are added to the A/B mixture. These observations are compared with experiments on blends of polystyrene (PS), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and PS-PMMA symmetric diblock copolymers. By measuring the contact angle of PS droplets on the PMMA layer, we can obtain a direct estimate for the interfacial tension at the PS/PMMA interface. The experiments also reveal that negligible interfacial tensions and emulsionlike structures are only obtained with relatively long diblocks.