Free energy of alternating two-component polymer brushes on cylindrical templates

TL;DR

This study uses computer simulations to analyze the free energy and phase separation behavior of two-component polymer brushes on cylindrical templates, revealing relationships between polymer sizes and free energy profiles.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the free energy dependence on stripe width and polymer size, extending previous theoretical understanding of polymer brush phase behavior on curved surfaces.

Findings

Free energy differences depend on stripe width and polymer sizes.

Phase separation into striped morphologies is energetically favorable.

Relationships between polymer sizes and free energy are established.

Abstract

We use computer simulations to investigate the stability of a two-component polymer brush de-mixing on a curved template into phases of different morphological properties. It has been previously shown via molecular dynamics simulations that immiscible chains having different length and anchored to a cylindrical template will phase separate into striped phases of different widths oriented perpendicularly to the cylindrical axis. We calculate free energy differences for a variety of stripe widths, and extract simple relationships between the sizes of the two polymers, N_1 and N_2, and the free energy dependence on the stripe width. We explain these relationships using simple physical arguments based upon previous theoretical work on the free energy of polymer brushes.