相关论文: Conformation-Induced Stiffening Effect of Crosslin…
The advances in new technologies have prompted the need for functional systems smaller than the gyration radius of polymer chains. Thus, understanding how nanoconfinement affects polymer properties has been the focus of a lot of research…
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…
A simple and predictive model is put forward explaining the experimentally observed substantial shift of the glass transition temperature, Tg, of sufficiently thin polymer films. It focuses on the limit of small molecular weight, where…
Electrically conducting polymers with mechanical adaptability are essential for flexible electronics, yet most suffer structural degradation under rapid deformation. In this study, multiscale coarse-grained (MSCG) simulations are used to…
The viscoelastic properties of thin polymeric films represent a central issue, especially for nanotechnological applications. In particular, it is highly relevant the dependence of viscoelasticity on the temperature. For polystyrene it is…
Nanoscale and microscale confinement of biopolymers naturally occurs in cells and has been recently achieved in artificial structures designed for nanotechnological applications. Here, we present an extensive theoretical investigation of…
Polymeric single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) are soft nano-objects synthesized by purely intramolecular cross-linking of single polymer chains. By means of computer simulations, we investigate the conformational properties of SCNPs as a…
We report simulation results on melts of entangled linear polymers confined in a free-standing thin film. We study how the geometric constraints imposed by the confinement alter the entanglement state of the system compared to the…
Finite-thickness effects are analyzed theoretically for the plasma frequency and associated dielectric response function of plasmonic films formed by periodically aligned, infinitely thin, identical metallic cylinders. The plasma frequency…
Equilibration of polymer melts containing highly entangled long polymer chains in confinement or with free surfaces is a challenge for computer simulations. We approach this problem by first studying polymer melts based on the soft-sphere…
Crumpling of a thin film leads to a unique stiff yet lightweight structure. The stiffness has been attributed to a complex interplay between four basic elements - smooth bends, sharp folds, localized points (developable cones), and…
We study the deformation of nano--scale polymer films which are subject to external bending forces by means of computer simulation. The polymer is represented by a generalized bead--spring--model, intended to reproduce characteristic…
We present a theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…
We propose a continuum theory to model the Mullins effect, which is ubiquitously observed in polymer composites. In the theory, the softening of the materials during the stretching process is accounted for by considering the delamination of…
The properties of polymeric nanofibers can be tailored and enhanced by properly managing the structure of the polymeric molecules at the nanoscale. Although electrospun polymer fibers are increasingly exploited in many technological…
Although wettability is a macroscopic manifestation of molecular-level forces, such as van der Waals (vdW) forces, the impact of nanoconfinement on material properties in reduced film thickness remains unexplored in predicting film…
The local elastic properties of strongly disordered host material are investigated using the theory of correlated random matrices. A significant increase in stiffness is shown in the interfacial region, which thickness depends on the…
Nanotechnology and the consequent emergence of miniaturized devices are driving the need to improve our understanding of the mechanical properties of a myriad of materials. Here we focus on amorphous polymeric materials and introduce a new…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…