Related papers: Effect of grafting on the binding transition of tw…
We compare the thermodynamic behavior of a finite single nongrafted polymer near an attractive substrate with that of a polymer grafted to that substrate. After we recently found first-order-like signatures in the microcanonical entropy at…
In this paper, we study the equilibrium properties of polymer chains end-tethered to a fluid membrane. The loss of conformational entropy of the polymer results in an inhomogeneous pressure field that we calculate for gaussian chains. We…
A self-interacting polymer can undergo an orientational ordering transition, depending on the magnitude of the nematic interaction. The effect of embedding such a polymer into a flexible surface on this transition is studied on the…
We have performed multicanonical chain-growth simulations of a polymer interacting with an adsorbing surface. The polymer, which is not explicitly anchored at the surface, experiences a hierarchy of phase transitions between conformations…
The stretching of brushes of long polymers grafted to a planar surface is investigated byMonte Carlo simulations in the limit of very high grafting densities, as achieved in recent experiments. The monomer density profiles are shown to…
We study the friction between a flat solid surface where polymer chains have been end-grafted and a cross-linked elastomer at low sliding velocity. The contribution of isolated grafted chains' penetration in the sliding elastomer has been…
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 nature of the globule-coil transition of surface-confined polymers has been an issue of debate. Here this 2D collapse transition is studied through a partially directed lattice model. In the general case of polymers with positive…
We employ the recently introduced generalized microcanonical inflection point method for the statistical analysis of phase transitions in flexible and semiflexible polymers and study the impact of the bending stiffness upon the character…
Intermolecular forces are known to precipitate adhesion events between solid bodies. Inspired by a macro-scale experiment showing the hysteretic adhesion of a piece of flexible tape over a plastic substrate, we develop here a model of…
The helix-coil transition is modified by grafting to a surface. This modification is studied for short peptides capable of forming $\alpha$-helices. Three factors are involved: (i) the grafting can induced change of the boundary free energy…
We analyze the structural behavior of a single polymer chain grafted to an attractive, flexible surface. Our model is composed of a coarse-grained bead-and-spring polymer and a tethered membrane. By means of extensive parallel tempering…
We explore the effect of an attractive interaction between parallel-aligned polymers, which are perpendicularly grafted on a substrate. Such an attractive interaction could be due to, e.g., reversible cross-links. The competition between…
A polymer chain tethered to a surface may be compact or extended, adsorbed or desorbed, depending on interactions with the surface and the surrounding solvent. This leads to a rich phase diagram with a variety of transitions. To investigate…
We investigate the folding and forced-unbinding transitions of adsorbed semiflexible polymer chains using theory and simulations. These processes describe biologically relevant phenomena that include adhesive interactions between proteins…
Surface-induced liquid crystalline phase transitions evoke fundamental interest and can provide deeper insight into the nature of low-dimensional phase transitions. Board-like conjugated polymers are particularly interesting because they…
We present single contact friction experiments between a glassy polymer and smooth silica substrates grafted with alkylsilane layers of different coverage densities and morphologies. This allows us to adjust the polymer/substrate…
It has been revealed by mean-field theories and computer simulations that the nature of the collapse transition of a polymer is influenced by its bending stiffness $\epsilon_{\rm b}$. In two dimensions, a recent analytical work demonstrated…
Many systems in nature exhibit transitions between fluid-like states and solid-like states, or "jamming transitions". There is a strong theoretical foundation for understanding equilibrium phase transitions that involve solidification, or…
Mixtures of nanoparticles and polymer-like objects are encountered in many nanotechnological applications and biological systems. We study the behavior of grafted polymer layers decorated by nanoparticles that are attracted to the polymers…