NUCLEATION AND GROWTH OF MONODISPERSE DROPLETS IN A BINARY-FLUID SYSTEM

Mixtures of polyisoprene and poly(ethylene-propylene) have been studied using time-resolved elastic light scattering. For off-critical quenches just into the two-phase coexistence region, highly monodisperse spheres are observed, whose radii grow with a power law R(t)=R0t1/2. The monodispersity and growth law are explained as a heterogeneous nucleation process with a simple model equation for the growth of isolated spheres, and allow the study of the kinetics of domain growth for metastable thermodynamic processes in unprecedented detail. © 1990 The American Physical Society.