Phase separation process of polymer-incorporated silica-zirconia sol-gel system

Gels with interconnected domain morphologies in the micrometer-range have been prepared in the silica-zirconia system. The domain formation kinetics in the gelling solution have been examined. Growth of an ordered structure on the length scale of micrometers, for which the kinetics are interpreted as spinodal decomposition, was observed by time-resolved light scattering measurements. The remarkable feature of the silica-zirconia system was that a time-dependent decrease of the wavelength of compositional fluctuations was observed. This occurred in the early stage, probably because the fast condensation reaction which was induced by the addition of zirconia, lead to a substantial change in quench depth on a timescale similar to that of the growth of concentration fluctuations. In the following stage, the coarsened domain structure was frozen-in by the sol-gel transition as the permanent morphology.