Fluctuation effects on the order-order transitions of a diblock copolymer melt

While there are many studies examining fluctuation effects on order-disorder transitions of block copolymer melts, there is relatively little understanding of how fluctuations affect the order-order transitions. This is because of difficulties in comparing the relative stability of ordered phases. The source of the problem is that their periodicities are inevitably different, and thus the phases need to be simulated in boxes of different size. Given recent advances in our understanding of the ultra-violet divergence that occurs in field-theoretic simulations, we are now able to calculate and compare free energies from different size boxes. Using this ability, we calculate fluctuation-corrected phase diagrams.