Physics – Condensed Matter – Soft Condensed Matter
Scientific paper
2005-01-19
Physics
Condensed Matter
Soft Condensed Matter
15 pages 7 figures, submitted to Langmuir
Scientific paper
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the spreading of binary polymer nanodroplets in a cylindrical geometry. The polymers, described by the bead-spring model, spread on a flat surface with a surface-coupled Langevin thermostat to mimic the effects of a corrugated surface. Each droplet consists of chains of length 10 or 100 monomers with ~350,000 monomers total. The qualitative features of the spreading dynamics are presented for differences in chain length, surface interaction strength, and composition. When the components of the droplet differ only in surface interaction strength, the more strongly wetting component forms a monolayer film on the surface even when both materials are above or below the wetting transition. In the case where the only difference is the polymer chain length, the monolayer film beneath the droplet is composed of an equal amount of short chain and long chain monomers even when one component (the shorter chain length) is above the wetting transition and the other is not. The fraction of short and long chains in the precursor foot depends on whether or not both the short and long chains are in the wetting regime. Diluting the concentration of the strongly wetting component in a mixture with a weakly wetting component decreases the rate of diffusion of the wetting material to the surface and limits the spreading rate of the precursor foot, but the bulk spreading rate is not affected until the more strongly wetting component is removed completely.
Grest Gary S.
Heine David R.
Webb III Edmund B.
No associations
LandOfFree
Diverse Spreading Behavior of Binary Polymer Nanodroplets does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Diverse Spreading Behavior of Binary Polymer Nanodroplets, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Diverse Spreading Behavior of Binary Polymer Nanodroplets will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-511324