Dynamic Interplay Between Wetting and Phase Separation in Geometrically Confined Polymer Mixtures

Here we study the interplay between wetting and phase separation for binary polymer mixtures confined in one-dimensional (1D) or two-dimensional (2D) capillaries. It is found that near the symmetric composition, the hydrodynamics unique to bicontinuous phase separation plays a crucial role on the wetting dynamics and the surface effect is strongly delocalized by the interconnectivity of the phases. The wetting dynamics is discussed on the basis of the hydrodynamic coarsening, focussing on the effect of the dimensionality of the geometrical confinement. We also discuss the possibility that the quick reduction of the interface area spontaneously causes double phase separation.