Conformational properties of a polymer chain confined between two plates

Abstract

The behavior of a polymer chain confined between parallel plates a distance D apart is studied by Monte Carlo calculations of self-avoiding walks for up to 100 steps on the tetrahedral lattice. Scaling predictions of Daoud and de Gennes are tested using the data obtained; they are consistent with the predictions for D≥7. Dependencies of the end-to-end distance of the chain and the monomer density distribution on D are examined. An exponent related to polymer adsorption is also estimated. Some of the results are compared with those obtained from the exact enumerations for up to 20 steps.