Effective force between confined colloids clothed by end-grafted polymer chains in solution

Abstract

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Controlling the Interactions between Soft Colloids via Surface Adsorption

“…34 Here, τ is a model-dependent parameter and γ = 43/32 is another universal exponent of the 2d-SARW. 15 Two such stars, when kept at infinite separation, are thus characterized by a partition function…”

“…35 The functional form of the short range star-star interaction remains the same but its amplitude increases due to confinement from 5 f 3/2 /18 to (2 + 9 f 2 )/24. 15 The effective force F short (d) for d R follows as minus the gradient of V eff (d). Taking into account that for d → R c the strong steric interaction between the cores dominates over the universal, logarithmic form of the latter arising from polymer self-avoidance, we are led to introduce a shift d → d − R c on the coordinate, as previously done also for three-dimensional star polymers, 30 yielding:…”

Star polymers confined in a nanoslit: a simulation test of scaling and self-consistent field theories

“…The physical properties and geometric conformations of macromolecules are strongly affected when these polymers are confined in nanoscopically thin slits or tubes, with linear dimensions in between the size of a monomeric unit and the size of a free macromolecule in solution [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. For linear macromolecules, this problem has been considered extensively in the literature, but much less attention has been devoted to the related problem of confining polymers with a more complex chemical architecture, such as star polymers with f arms [18][19][20], dendrimers [19], randomly branched polymers, etc. Such questions are important in various contexts, such as chromatographic separations, colloidal stabilization (recall that a nanocolloid coated with a grafted polymeric brush layer in many respects has properties closely related to a star polymer [21]), preparation of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials, biomolecules constrained by cell membranes, etc.…”

“…Such questions are important in various contexts, such as chromatographic separations, colloidal stabilization (recall that a nanocolloid coated with a grafted polymeric brush layer in many respects has properties closely related to a star polymer [21]), preparation of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials, biomolecules constrained by cell membranes, etc. Understanding such problems first for isolated macromolecules and confining purely repulsive walls is a prerequisite before one can address many related relevant problems such as adsorption of such macromolecules at the confining surfaces [22][23][24], interactions between confined polymers under various conditions [20,[25][26][27], etc.…”

The Escape Transition of a Compressed Star Polymer: Self-Consistent Field Predictions Tested by Simulation

“…In the present paper, we shall be concerned with the escape transition when the macromolecule is not a simple linear chain but has a star polymer architecture [36][37][38][39][40]. In the limit where H is much smaller than the radius of a free star, the configuration of a star polymer with f arms confined into a slit of width H is essentially a quasi-two-dimensional star polymer, where each arm occupies a slice with an angle 2π/f cut from a cylinder of height H and radius R (f ) with [41][42][43][44]…”