Conformational Properties of an Adsorbed Charged Polymer

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conformational behavior of a strongly charged polymer adsorbed on an oppositely charged surface, revealing a continuous crossover in compression regimes and validating results with Monte-Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a functional integral approach to analyze adsorbed charged polymers, identifying a continuous crossover and proposing an operational definition of adsorption.

Findings

Identified a continuous crossover from weak to strong compression regimes.

Derived scaling behaviors for polymer height and diffusion layer thickness.

Validated analytical results with Monte-Carlo simulations.

Abstract

The behavior of a strongly charged polymer adsorbed on an oppositely charged surface of low-dielectric constant is formulated by the functional integral method. By separating the translational, conformational, and fluctuational degrees of freedom, the scaling behaviors for both the height of the polymer and the thickness of the diffusion layer are determined. Unlike the results predicted by scaling theory, we identified the continuous crossover from the weak compression to the compression regime. All teh analytical results are found to be consistent with Monte-Carlo simulations. Finally, an alternative (operational) definition of a charged polymer adsorption is proposed.