Kinetic Pathways of Order-Disorder and Order-Order Transitions in Weakly Segregated Microstructured Systems

The kinetics of hexagonal to disordered and hexagonal to body-centered-cubic phase transitions in weakly segregated, microstructured systems (e.g., diblock copolymers) is studied using a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) approach. Both computer simulation of the TDGL equation and analysis of a simplified two-mode model reveal nontrivial pathways during the transition.