Interruption of coarsening in binary fluid mixtures

M. E. Cates
University of Edinburgh

I will describe two ways to prevent coarsening in a system of binary fluids en route to macroscopic phase separation: one by adding colloidal particles, and one by steady shearing. Both have been studied in our group using lattice Boltzmann simulations. Inclusion of neutrally wetting colloids in symmetric pair of demixing fluids can jam the interface and arrest the dynamics altogether [1]; I hope to report some new results for off-symmetric cases.  For a two dimensional binary fluid system (without colloids) undergoing steady shear, we have recently established the first clear numerical evidence of non-equilibrium steady states with finite correlation lengths [2]. Preliminary results for three dimensions may be discussed.

[1] K. Stratford et al, Science, 309, 2198 (2005).

[2] P. Stansell et al, Phys Rev Lett, in press (2006).