Related papers: Depth-dependent interplay of dynamical heterogenei…
The presence of a viscoelastic mechanism distinctly different from the segmental a-relaxation and the Rouse modes within the glass-rubber transition zone of polymers had been justified by theoretical considerations, and subsequently…
Polymers near the glass transition temperature Tg often exhibit a breakdown of time-temperature-superposition (TTS), with chain relaxation times and viscosity exhibiting a weaker temperature dependence than segmental relaxation times. The…
The dynamics of structural relaxation in a model polymer glass subject to spatially-homogeneous, time-periodic shear deformation is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. We study a coarse-grained bead-spring model of short…
The Rouse model can be regarded as the standard model to describe the dynamics of a short polymer chain under melt conditions. In this contribution, we explicitly check one of the fundamental assumptions of this model, namely that of a…
We measure the isothermal rejuvenation of stable glass films of poly(styrene) and poly(methylmethacrylate). We demonstrate that the propagation of the front responsible for the transformation to a supercooled-liquid state can serve as a…
Understanding how topological constraints affect the dynamics of polymers in solution is at the basis of any polymer theory and it is particularly needed for melts of rings. These polymers fold as crumpled and space-filling objects and,…
By means of computer simulations and solution of the equations of the Mode Coupling Theory (MCT), we investigate the role of the intramolecular barriers on several dynamic aspects of non-entangled polymers. The investigated dynamic range…
Star polymers can exhibit a heterogeneous dynamical behavior due to their internal structure. In this work we employ atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to study translational motion in non-entangled polystyrene and poly(ethylene…
Free surfaces in glassy polymer films are known to induce surface mobile layers with enhanced dynamics. Using molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model, we study a wide variety of layer-resolved structural and dynamical…
Ring polymers are an intriguing class of polymers with unique physical properties, and understanding their behavior is important for developing accurate theoretical models. In this study, we investigate the effect of chain stiffness and…
Characteristics of relaxed density profile and conformation of polymer chains are studied by a Monte Carlo simulation on a discrete lattice in three dimensions using different segmental (kink-jump $K$, crank-shaft $C$, reptation $R$)…
We study the segmental dynamics of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) from microscopic simulations in the neat polymer and a polymer electrolyte (PEO/LiBF$_4$) by analyzing the normal modes. We verify the applicability of the Rouse theory,…
Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the shear thinning behavior of immiscible symmetric polymer blends. The phase separated polymers are subjected to a simple shear flow imposed by moving a wall parallel to the…
Changes in the dynamics of supported polymer films in comparison to bulk materials involve a complex convolution of effects, such as substrate interactions, roughness and compliance, in addition to film thickness. We consider molecular…
We show how dynamic heterogeneities (DH), a hallmark of glass-forming materials, depend on chain flexibility and chain length in polymers. For highly flexible polymers, a relatively large number of monomers ($N_c\sim500$) undergo correlated…
By means of computer simulations, we investigate the relaxation of the Rouse modes in a simple bead-spring model for non-entangled polymer blends. Two different models are used for the fast component, namely fully-flexible and semiflexible…
We propose a theory of the dynamics of polymers in dilute solution, in which the popular Zimm and Rouse models are limiting cases of infinitely large and small draining parameter. The equation of motion for the polymer segments beads) is…
We report results of molecular-dynamics simulations for a glassy polymer melt consisting of short, linear bead-spring chains. It was shown in previous work that this onset of the glassy slowing down is compatible with the predictions of the…
Polymer-related materials exhibit rich glassy behaviors at different length scales due to their various molecular structures and topological constraints. Recent studies have identified transient interpenetration of the long-chain rings…
Two decades of experimental research indicates that spatial confinement of glass-forming molecular and polymeric liquids results in major changes of their slow dynamics beginning at large confinement distances. A fundamental understanding…