Compression of Polymer Brushes Under a Lateral Force

✍ Scribed by Victor M. Amoskov; Tatiana M. Birshtein; Anatoly A. Darinskii; Alla I. Tupitsyna

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 254 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1344
• DOI: 10.1002/mats.200400016

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Summary: The influence of a lateral force (or lateral shear) acting on chains in a polymer brush is investigated theoretically. Brushes consisting of chains with temperature dependent anisotropic interactions between monomers (main‐chain mesogenic groups) are considered. It is shown that a lateral force applied to polymer brush induces its compression. In contrast to a conventional brush, the compression of brush, capable of forming a liquid crystalline (LC) state, can be caused by comparatively small shear forces. Moreover, such shear forces can induce a phase transition of a brush into the tilted LC state with a several‐fold decrease in brush thickness. These results allow us to predict a possibility to observe a decrease in brush thickness in a real experiment with reasonably values of shear rate.

Model of a chain in a polymer brush under an influence of lateral force p.

imageModel of a chain in a polymer brush under an influence of lateral force p.