Dynamical scaling and fragmentation in viscous coarsening: An interrupted in-situ X-ray tomographic study

David Bouttes (1) , Emmanuelle Gouillart (2) , Elodie Boller (3) , Davy Dalmas (2) , Damien Vandembroucq (1)

1 PMMH - Physique et mécanique des milieux hétérogenes (UMR 7636)
2 SVI - Surface du Verre et Interfaces
3 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

By means of computed X-Ray microtomography we followed the coarsening of a phase-separated ternary silicate glass in the liquid state. The volumes, surfaces, mean and gaussian curvatures of the domains of minority phase were measured after reconstruction of the 3D images and segmentation. We observed a growth law of the characteristic length scale ∼ t consistent with the viscous coarsening of bicontinuous structure. All geometrical observables under study, either local or global, confirm the dynamical scaling hypothesis. A gradual fragmentation of the structure was observed in the less viscous phase and led to a power-law size distribution of isolated domains.

Mots clés: phase-separation; coarsening; tomography; fragmentation; dynamical scaling; viscous

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

David Bouttes, Emmanuelle Gouillart, Elodie Boller, Davy Dalmas, Damien Vandembroucq. Dynamical scaling and fragmentation in viscous coarsening: An interrupted in-situ X-ray tomographic study. 2013. ⟨hal-00859334v1⟩