Font Size: 

In equilibrium, planar AB interfaces in a binary blend attract each other, and this attractive interface potential results in coarsening even in the absence of curvature-driven or diffusive motion of interfaces. If the incompatibility between the components oscillates in time, however, the interface potential becomes repulsive and there are preferred interface distances. In a thin-film geometry, this results into the dissipative self-assembly of a blend into a lamellar morphology. Analyzing the driven, non-equilibrium behavior in the framework of a Ginzburg-Landau description by numerical simulations and analytical techniques, we establish conditions at which dissipative self-assembly into lamellae occurs and demonstrate that, after a threshold period, the preferred interface distances increases like the square root of the period, allowing for a control of the lamellar spacing. This continuum description is corroborated by particle-based simulations of a polymer blend.