Viscoelastic effect on nucleation in semidilute polymer solutions

(Received 30 March 1992, accepted in final form 16 June 1992)

Abstract
We study the growth of droplets consisting mostly of solvent in a metastable semidilute polymer solution. We introduce a modified Gibbs-Thomson relation at the interface which accounts for viscoelastic effects. The growth is much decelerated when the radius is shorter than a long viscoelastic length.