Adsorption of polymer chains on structured surface: field theoretical approach

TL;DR

This paper uses a field theoretical approach to analyze how ideal polymer chains adsorb onto structured surfaces with varying adsorption energies, revealing different scaling laws from those on homogeneous surfaces.

Contribution

It provides an analytical investigation of polymer adsorption on structured surfaces, deriving correlation functions and force calculations, highlighting non-universal scaling behaviors.

Findings

Derived two-point correlation functions for structured surfaces.

Calculated the force exerted by polymer chains on the surface.

Identified different scaling laws for structured surface adsorption.

Abstract

Taking into account the well known correspondence between the field theoretical O(n)-vector model in the limit $n\to 0$ and the behavior of long-flexible polymer chains in a good solvent the investigation of ideal polymer chains adsorption onto structured surface like as a chemical step (where one part of a surface is repulsive for polymers and other part is at the adsorption threshold) was performed. The two-point correlation function of ideal polymer chain in the half - space bounded by structured surface with different adsorption energies $c_{1}$ and $c_{2}$ (with $c_{1}\neq c_{2}$) and the "closest form" for the free propagator of the model were obtained in analytical form. Besides, the force which ideal polymer chain with free end exerts on the structured surface, when the other end is fixed at the surface, was calculated. The obtained results indicate that the process of homopolymer adsorption onto structured surfaces should be described by different scaling laws than universal scaling laws predicted in the literature for homopolymer adsorption on homogeneous surfaces.