Surface Segregation of Cyclic Chains in Binary Melts of Thin Polymer Films: The Influence of Constituent Concentration

Abstract

We carry out extensive molecular dynamics simulations of thin films of bead-spring models of binary mixtures composed of cyclic and linear polymer chains. We study the equilibrium behavior of the polymer chains for two very different chain lengths, which resemble short (10-mers) and long (100-mers) chains, at different concentrations of the binary mixture. We clearly show how the concentration variable affects the enrichment of either of the two polymer species at the interface, and also how the chain length influences this process.

Keywords

• polymer melt
• concentration
• surface behavior
• interface