Polyelectrolytes: Theory, Properties and Applications

Structural Properties and Phase Behavior ... 9

Figure 2. Macrophase transition: a) ps vs  for a symmetrical DCP
(x = 1/2, as = bs = ps). (See Eq. 4), points 1, 2 and 3 indicate the conditions of the
calculated curves in b) Saa(q) vs qR^22 g.

Increasing , the second term in the RHS of Eq. 13 plays the major role

and Saa(q) vs q shows a peak at finite qm reminiscent of the DCP architecture.
The peak position qm depends weakly on ab but its height Saa(qm) increases
abruptly and diverges at the critical value of the interaction parameter. Figure
3 illustrates the approach to micro phase transition indicated by the three
points in panel a and the tendency towards divergence of Saa(qm) in panel b.
The symmetrical limit leads to simple formulae and describes the essential
features of DCPs but we are rather interested on more complex systems

0 5 10 15 20

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1.

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.

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b)

S

aa

(q

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q

2

R

2

g

1

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



ps

macrophase

1

2

3

a)

Benmouna et al. Figure 2