| The Shape of Confined Polymer Chains |
| A. Sikorski Department of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, Pasteura 1, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland |
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| Received: December 9, 2002 |
| The linear polymer chains were modeled on a simple cubic lattice. The excluded volume was included into the model while the system remained athermal (no attractive interactions) which simulated the good solvent conditions. The polymer chain was located between two parallel impenetrable walls and the distance between the walls was changing. No interaction between walls and polymer segments was assumed. These models of polymer chains were simulated by the means of the Monte Carlo method. In the sampling algorithm we used the micromodifications of chain's conformations to sample efficiently the conformational space. The size of the chain did not change monotonically for all lengths under consideration (up to 800 statistical segments). For distances between the plates close to the double value of chain's radius of gyration the size of the chain approached its minimum value. It was shown that scaling of chain dimensions with its length changed from N 1.18 to N 1.5 while the distance between the walls was decreasing. The behavior of the asymmetry of the chain was found to be analogous to that of the radius of gyration. |
| DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.103.339 PACS numbers: 02.50.Ng, 05.10.Ln, 61.25.Hq |