Molecular Dynamics Simulation on the Scaling Relation of Single Polymer Chain Diffusion on Single Wall Carbon Nanotube

Abstract

ABSTRACT The diffusion of polymer confined on the surface has been an important topic of interest in polymer science. Extensive research has been done on the scaling relation between diffusion coefficient and chain length for polymer confined in flat two-dimension surface and three-dimension bulk. More work is still needed to be done on the polymer confined on a curved surface. In the present work, the molecular dynamics method is used to simulate the diffusion of a single polymer chain with different lengths on single-wall carbon nanotube. We investigate the influences of the temperature and the nanotube diameter on the scaling relation between the diffusion coefficient and the chain length. The results show that the scaling relation is independent on the temperature. However, the nanotube diameter influences the scaling relation obviously. With the nanotube diameter increasing, the scaling exponent increases.