Fluctuation effects in block copolymer melts

Symmetric diblocks for three molecular weights on a range of significantly larger system sizes were examined in order to assess finite-size effects, and runs were performed for both cooling and heating. In addition to the internal energy, specific heat, and molecular size examined by Pakula et al., the shape of an individual chain, the correlation function, the structure function, and the lamellar profile was investigated as well. Furthermore, mean-field calculations on the same lattice model were performed in order to provide the first direct and unbiased comparisons between Monte Carlo simulations and mean-field theory.