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

作者：Theodorakis P E^*; Paul W; Binder K

来源：European Physical Journal E, 2011, 34(5): 52.

DOI：10.1140/epje/i2011-11052-5

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.

• 出版日期2011-5