English

Localization of a multiblock copolymer at a selective interface: Scaling predictions and Monte Carlo verification

Soft Condensed Matter 2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We investigate the localization of a hydrophobic - polar (HP) - regular copolymer at a selective solvent-solvent interface with emphasis on the impact of block length MM on the copolymer behavior. The considerations are based on simple scaling arguments and use the mapping of the problem onto a homopolymer adsorption problem. The resulting scaling relations treat the gyration radius of the copolymer chain perpendicular and parallel to the interface in terms of chain length N and block size M, as well as the selectivity parameter \chi . The scaling relations differ for the case of weak and strong localization. In the strong localization limit a scaling relation for the lateral diffusion coefficient D is also derived. We implement a dynamic off-lattice Monte - Carlo model to verify these scaling predictions. For chain lengths in a wide range (32 < N < 512) we find good agreement with the scaling predictions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0411402,
  title  = {Localization of a multiblock copolymer at a selective interface: Scaling predictions and Monte Carlo verification},
  author = {Andrea Corsi and Andrey Milchev and Vakhtang G. Rostiashvili and Thomas A. Vilgis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0411402},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

19 pages, 9 figures, submitted to J. Chem. Phys