Abstract
It was found in experiments that polymer dimensions could be increased, decreased, or even unperturbed in polymer nanocomposites. The physical reason is still unclear. We unveil the physics for the change of polymer dimensions by performing Monte Carlo simulations on the conformation of polymer in the crowded environment with periodically distributed nanoparticles (NPs). Polymer dimensions at high temperatures are roughly close to that of free polymer chain, whereas at low temperatures, they can be increased or decreased. Results show that the relative size between the end-to-end distance of polymer in dilute solution R0 and the inter-particle distance d dominates the polymer dimensions at low temperature. Universal behaviors are found corresponding to four regions: (I) d 2R0. The behaviors of polymer dimensions can be understood from different adsorption states of polymer on NPs.
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