Critical adsorption of a flexible polymer confined between two parallel interacting surfaces

Abstract

Critical adsorption of a lattice self-avoiding bond fluctuation polymer chain confined between two parallel impenetrable surfaces is studied using the Monte Carlo method. The dependence of the mean contact number <M> on the temperature T and on the chain length N is simulated for a polymer-surface interaction E=-1. A critical adsorption of the polymer is found at T(c)=1.65 for large surface separation distance D>N(ν)b, whereas no critical adsorption is observed for small distance D<N(ν)b, where ν ≈ 0.58 is the Flory exponent and b is the mean bond length. The critical adsorption point T(c)=1.65 is the same as that of a grafted polymer. Normal diffusion is observed for the confined polymer; however, the diffusion rate is dependent on the temperature and surface separation distance.