Related papers: Interfacial Instability of Charged End-Group Polym…
The interactions between spherical colloids covered with end-grafted polymers (brushes) immersed in a polymer melt are studied theoretically. We show that attractive enthalpic interactions between the two polymer species, characterized by a…
The equilibrium properties of polymer droplets on a soft deformable surface are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model. The surface consists of a polymer brush with irreversibly end-tethered linear homopolymer…
The behavior of polyampholytes near a charged planar surface is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The investigated polyampholytes are overall electrically neutral and made up of oppositely charged units (called blocks) that are…
The number of allowed configurations of a polymer is reduced by the presence of a repulsive surface resulting in an entropic force between them. We develop a method to calculate the entropic force, and detailed pressure distribution, for…
Friction between ring-polymer brushes at melt densities sliding past each other are studied using extensive course-grained molecular dynamics simulations and scaling arguments, and the results are compared to the friction between…
It has recently been proposed that the miscibility of nanoparticles with a polymer matrix can be controlled by grafting polymer chains to the nanoparticle surface. As a first step to study this situation, we have used molecular dynamics…
We analyze the shear response of grafted polymer chains in shear flow via coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Our simulations confirm that the shear response is dominated by the brush's outermost correlation volume, which depends…
We report on a study of the shape of a stiff, charged rod that is subjected to equal and opposite force couples at its two ends. Unlike a neutral elastic rod, which forms a constant curvature configuration under such influences, the charged…
We study the effect of polydispersity on the structure of polymer brushes by analytical theory, a numerical self-consistent field approach, and Monte Carlo simulations. The polydispersity is represented by the Schulz-Zimm chain-length…
Compression of an adsorbed polymer layer distorts its relaxed structure. Surface force measurements from different laboratories show that the return to this relaxed structure after the compression is released can be slowed to the scale of…
Molecular dynamics simulations of a short-chain polymer melt between two brush-covered surfaces under shear have been performed. The end-grafted polymers which constitute the brush have the same chemical properties as the free chains in the…
We develop a strong stretching approximation for a polymer brush made of self-avoiding polymer chains. The density profile of the brush and the distribution of the end monomer positions in stretching direction are computed and compared with…
We investigate the effect of polydispersity on the properties of curved linear brushes in good solvent and for molten brushes. To this end, we extend the strong stretching theory for polydisperse brushes to curved geometries and investigate…
Chain-like macromolecules (polymers) show characteristic adsorption properties due to their flexibility and internal degrees of freedom, when attracted to surfaces and interfaces. In this review we discuss concepts and features that are…
The recent discovery of electro-active polymers has shown great promises in the field of soft robotics, and was logically followed by experimental, numerical and theoretical developments. Most of these studies were concerned with systems…
We performed molecular dynamics simulations to study equilibrium and flow properties of a liquid in a nano-channel with confining surfaces coated with a layer of grafted semiflexible polymers. The coverage spans a wide range of grafting…
A comparative dynamic Monte Carlo simulation study of polydisperse living polymer brushes, created by surface initiated living polymerization, and conventional polymer monodisperse brush, comprising linear polymer chains, grafted to a…
Recently a novel class of responsive uncharged polymer brushes has been proposed [Klushin et al, J. Chem. Phys. 154, 074904 (2021)] where the brush-forming chains have an affinity to the substrate. For sufficiently strong surface…
Polyelectrolyte (PE) brushes have ubiquitous applications as surface modifiers which regulate various structural and dynamic properties. Here, we apply a continuous-space self-consistent field theory to study the structural heterogeneity in…
A comparative simulation study of polymer brushes formed by grafting at a planar surface either flexible linear polymers (chain length $N_L$) or (non-catenated) ring polymers (chain length $N_R=2 N_L$) is presented. Two distinct off-lattice…