Comment on "Cylindrical phase of block copolymers: stability of circular configuration to elliptical distortions and thin film morphologies".
Pereira [Phys. Rev. E 63, 061809 (2001)] has recently predicted that the hexagonal symmetry of the cylindrical phase in AB diblock copolymer melts is highly unstable. This is in stark disagreement with experiment, and can be attributed to the fact that the connectivity of the A and B blocks is not enforced in his implementation of the strong-segregation theory. Here, the stability of the hexagonal symmetry is supported by alternative calculations based on a more advanced strong-segregation theory that enforces the connectivity as well as the more rigorous self-consistent field theory.
Matsen
M W
MW
Polymer Science Centre, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AF, United Kingdom.