Continuous Self-Avoiding Walk with Application to the Description of Polymer Chains
- Creators
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Li, Youyong
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Goddard, William A., III
Abstract
We develop the continuous self-avoiding walk (CSAW) methodology for investigating temperature dependent thermodynamic properties of finite polymer chains without imposing a lattice. This leads to a new concept: the free energy theta temperature, T_(θF), at which the free energy is proportional to chain length. Above T_(θF), the polymer chain-solvent mixture leads to a single phase, whereas below T_(θF) the polymer solvent system has a positive surface tension with a tendency to phase separation to form a globular phase. For finite chains this coil-globule transition lies above the geometric theta temperature at which the distribution describes a Gaussian coil. CSAW provides the basis for a new approach to predict globular properties of real polymers.
Additional Information
© 2006 American Chemical Society. Received 11 July 2006. Published online 26 August 2006. Published in print 1 September 2006. We thank Dr. Jiro Sadanobu (Teijin) and Prof. Zhen-Gang Wang (Caltech) for helpful discussions. This research was initiated with support from ARO-MURI (DAAG55-97-1-0126) and completed with support from DARPA-PROM (ONR N00014-02-1-0839).Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 78046
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170609-083755646
- Army Research Office (ARO)
- DAAG55-97-1-0126
- Office of Naval Research (ONR)
- N00014-02-1-0839
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Created
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2017-06-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field