Structure factor of a Gaussian chain confined between two parallel plates.

Abstract

We study the structure factor of a single Gaussian chain confined between two macroscopic parallel plates theoretically. The chain propagator is constructed in terms of the eigen-spectrum of the Laplace operator under the Dirichlet boundary condition enforced at the two plates, by which the confinement effect enters the treatment through size-dependent eigen-spectrum. In terms of the series expansion solution for the chain propagator, we first calculate the confinement free energy and the confinement force for an arbitrary confinement strength. It is found that the confinement force scales to the distance between the two confining surfaces with a power of -3 for strong confinements and of -2 for weak confinements. Based on the ground state dominance approximation for strong confinements and the Euler-Maclaurin formula for weak confinements, we develop approximation theories for the two limit situations, which agree with the numerical results well. We further calculate the structure factor of the confined Gaussian chain in this slit geometry. While the scattering function of the transverse chain fluctuations perpendicular to the confinement direction is still a Debye function form, the structure factor for the longitudinal fluctuations along the confinement dimension starts with the monotonic Debye function behavior for weak confinements and develops a decaying oscillation behavior with the increase of confinements. The numerical results for the structure factor are also interpreted by developing approximation theories in different confinement regimes. Finally, the orientational average of the anisotropic structure factor is performed and an analytic expression for the averaged structure factor is derived under the ground state dominance approximation for strong confinements.