Static and dynamic properties of polymer brush with topological ring structures: Molecular dynamic simulation

WB Wan and HH Lv and H Merlitz and CX Wu, CHINESE PHYSICS B, 25, 106101 (2016).

DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/25/10/106101

By defining a topological constraint value (rn), the static and dynamic properties of a polymer brush composed of moderate or short chains with different topological ring structures are studied using molecular dynamics simulation, and a comparison with those of linear polymer brush is also made. For the center-of-mass height of the ring polymer brush scaled by chain length h similar to N-nu, there is no significant difference of exponent from that of a linear brush in the small topological constraint regime. However, as the topological constraint becomes stronger, one obtains a smaller exponent. It is found that there exists a master scaling power law of the total stretching energy scaled by chain length N for moderate chain length regime, F-ene similar to N rho(nu), for ring polymer brushes, but with a larger exponent nu than 5/6, indicating an influence of topological constraint to the dynamic properties of the system. A topological invariant of free energy scaled by < c >(5/4) is found.

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