Stability of the fcc structure in block copolymer systems

The stability of the face-centered cubic (fcc) structure in microphase separated copolymers is investigated by a coarse-grained approach. Direct simulations of the equation for the microphase separation in three dimensions indicate that there is a narrow area above a certain degree of segregation in the phase diagram, where the fcc structure is the most stable structure. By employing the mode expansion, we have confirmed that the fcc structure can form as a metastable structure even in the weak segregation regime.