Tilt grain boundary instabilities in three dimensional lamellar patterns

Abstract

We identify a finite wavenumber instability of a 90$^{\circ}$ tilt grain boundary in three dimensional lamellar phases which is absent in two dimensional configurations. Both a stability analysis of the slowly varying amplitude or envelope equation for the boundary, and a direct numerical solution of an order parameter model equation are presented. The instability mode involves two dimensional perturbations of the planar base boundary, and is suppressed for purely one dimensional perturbations. We find that both the most unstable wavenumbers and their growth rate increase with $\epsilon$, the dimensionless distance away from threshold of the lamellar phase.