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Updated: Oct 15, 2026

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Continuous and discontinuous transitions between double primitive network and body-centered cubic spheres
Juntong He1, Xue-Hui Dong1,2, Jiajia Zhou1,2
1School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Abstract:
A stable region of the double primitive (DP) network structure formed by the AB-type comb-shaped block copolymer (A-g-B CSBCP) melts is identified using self-consistent field theory. The formation mechanism of the DP network is systematically investigated. In the mean-field limit, the transition in the A-g-B CSBCP melts between the DP network and its spherical counterpart, the metastable body-centered cubic (BCC) spheres, can be either continuous or discontinuous, distinct from the typical order-order transitions (OOTs) observed in conventional block copolymer melts. We further determine the critical point at which the discontinuity vanishes. Our results demonstrate that the stability of the DP phase and the continuous OOT primarily originate from the unique chain architecture of the A-g-B CSBCP.
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