Analysis of the cluster formation in two-component cylindrical bottle-brush polymers under poor solvent conditions. A simulation study

Autor(en)

Panagiotis Theodorakis, Wolfgang Paul, Kurt Binder

Abstrakt

Two-component bottle-brush polymers, where flexible side chains containing N = 20, 35 and 50 effective monomers are grafted alternatingly to a rigid backbone, are studied by Molecular Dynamics simulations, varying the grafting density sigma and the solvent quality. Whereas for poor solvents and large enough sigma the molecular brush is a cylindrical object with monomers of different type occupying locally the two different halves of the cylinder, for intermediate values of sigma an axially inhomogeneous structure of "pearl-necklace" type is formed, where microphase separation between monomers of different type within a cluster takes place. These "pearls" have a strongly non-spherical ellipsoidal shape, due to the fact that several side chains cluster together in one "pearl". We discuss the resulting structures in detail and we present a comparison with the single-component bottle-brush case.

Organisation(en)

Computergestützte Physik und Physik der Weichen Materie

Externe Organisation(en)

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Journal

European Physical Journal E

Band

34

Anzahl der Seiten

12

ISSN

1292-8941

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2011-11052-5

Publikationsdatum

2011

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

1030 Physik, Astronomie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e559af94-e602-4b1d-b85a-09cb208efe34