Interactions between densely grafted molten polymer brushes:Scaling theories versus molecular simulations

Authors : Aykut ERBAŞ

Pages : 1-12

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Publication Date : 0000-00-00

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Using molecular dynamics simulations and scaling arguments, we analyzed the interactions between twoidentical molten polymer brushes intermediately and strongly compressed towards each other at melt conditions. Thewidth of the overlap region, in which monomers of the linear chains composing the two brushes interact, increases asthe polymer-grafted surfaces are brought closer. If two-brush coated surfaces are as close as the characteristics size ofthe grafted chains, the overlap region is directly controlled by intersurface distance. At intermediate compression, thewidth of the overlap region scales with the end-to-end size of chain sections within the overlap region. This result isconsistent with the scaling regimes in the literature. As the intersurface distance is decreased, the number fraction ofchains insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(chains with their free ends in the overlap region); decreases with a power law. Our results could be useful forstudies on tribological behavior of polymer-grafted surfaces as well as for the self-assembly of polymer coated colloids.
Keywords : Polymer brushes, melt, molecular dynamics