Related papers: Microphase separation in cross-linked polymer blen…
We study a blend of two kinds of homopolymers with tendency for segragation. Cross-links between the chains of different kinds do not allow macrophase separation. Instead microphase structure appears. Starting from a microscopic model we…
A mean field rate theory description of the homo- and co-polymerization of $f$-functional molecules is developed, which contains the formation of short cyclic structures inside the network. The predictions of this model are compared with…
A two-component system of penetrable particles interacting via a gaussian core potential is considered, which may serve as a crude model for binary polymer solutions. The pair structure and thermodynamic properties are calculated within the…
Obtaining a rigorous and reliable method for linking computer simulations of polymer blends and composites at different length scales of interest is a highly desirable goal in soft matter physics. In this paper a multiscale modeling…
We propose a new toy model of a heteropolymer chain capable of forming planar secondary structures typical for RNA molecules. In this model the sequential intervals between neighboring monomers along a chain are considered as quenched…
We study the phase behavior of random heteropolymers (RHPs) with quenched cross-links, a novel polymer class of technological and biological relevance, and show the possible occurrence of freezing with few chain conformations sampled. The…
We study the phase transitions of a random copolymer chain with quenched disorder. We apply a replica variational approach based on a Gaussian trial Hamiltonian in terms of the correlation functions of monomer Fourier coordinates. This…
Polymerization and formation of crosslinked polymer networks are important processes in manufacturing, materials fabrication, and in the case of hydrated polymer networks, synthesis of biomedical materials, drug delivery, and tissue…
Given the wide range of length scales, the analysis of polymer systems often requires coarse-graining, for which various levels of description may be possible depending on the phenomenon under consideration. Here, we provide a super-coarse…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…
The structural phase behavior of polymer brushes, single-component linear homopolymers grafted onto a planar substrate, is studied using the molecular Monte Carlo method in 3 dimensions. When simulation parameters of the system are set in…
We present a new simulation technique to study systems of polymers functionalized by reactive sites that bind/unbind forming reversible linkages. Functionalized polymers feature self-assembly and responsive properties that are unmatched by…
We consider here a blend made of two types of polymers, $A$ and $B$, of different chemical nature. At high temperature the homogeneous mixture is cross-linked. As the temperature is lowered, the two species try to segregate but are kept…
Compatibilized polymer blends are a complex, yet versatile and widespread category of material. When the components of a binary blend are immiscible, they are typically driven towards a macrophase-separated state, but with the introduction…
Liquid-liquid phase separation underlies phenomena ranging from protein condensate formation to the phase coexistence of synthetic polymers. Although the random phase approximation (RPA) is widely used to predict such phase behavior, its…
The random phase approximation (RPA) has received a considerable interest in the field of modeling systems where noncovalent interactions are important. Its advantages over widely used density functional theory (DFT) approximations are the…
The phase behavior of a cross-linked polymer blend made of two incompatible species, $A$ and $B$, of different chemical nature is analyzed. Besides a homogeneous phase, this system also exhibits two microphases and a phase of total…
Hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo simulations used to study melts of unentangled, thermoreversibly associating supramolecular polymers. In this first of a series of papers, we describe and validate a model that is effective in…
We investigate the phase behaviour of random copolymers melts via large scale Monte Carlo simulations. We observe macrophase separation into A and B--rich phases as predicted by mean field theory only for systems with a very large…
We study theoretically a model system of a transient network of microemulsion droplets connected by telechelic polymers and explain recent experimental findings. Despite the absence of any specific interactions between either the droplets…