Kinetics and Jamming Coverage in a Random Sequential Adsorption of Polymer Chains

TL;DR

This study investigates the kinetics of polymer chain adsorption on a lattice, revealing a power-law decay of jamming coverage with chain length and a chain-length-dependent growth exponent, using advanced Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a highly efficient Monte Carlo method to analyze RSA of polymer chains, providing the first detailed measurement of jamming coverage decay with chain length.

Findings

Jamming coverage decays as N^{-0.1} with chain length.

Coverage growth follows a power-law approaching the jamming limit.

Effective growth exponent decreases with increasing chain length.

Abstract

Using a highly efficient Monte Carlo algorithm, we are able to study the growth of coverage in a random sequential adsorption (RSA) of self-avoiding walk (SAW) chains for up to 10^{12} time steps on a square lattice. For the first time, the true jamming coverage (theta_J) is found to decay with the chain length (N) with a power-law theta_J propto N^{-0.1}. The growth of the coverage to its jamming limit can be described by a power-law, theta(t) approx theta_J -c/t^y with an effective exponent y which depends on the chain length, i.e., y = 0.50 for N=4 to y = 0.07 for N=30 with y -> 0 in the asymptotic limit N -> infinity.