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CPM Seminar
Marc Pépin University of Ottawa Mean Field theories have been very succcessful in the study of polymers in solution except that some of the assumptions inherent in the mean field approach limit the applicalbility. On the other hand, Monte Carlo simulations do not necessarily require the same approximations and are becoming increasingly important in the study of polymers. In this study, Monte Carlo simulations are used as a complement to mean field theories to probe the assumptions of the latter and to compare with experiments. Two sytems are studied. The first system consists of polymers in good solvent with one end of each polymer end-tethered to a surface resulting in a polymer brush. Results show a good agreement between Monte Carlo simulations and numerical self-consistent mean field theory down to low surface coverage of polymer. The second system consists of block copolymers in solvent which can phase separate and form spherical micro-domains refered to as micelles. We are interested in the scaling of the micelle size with the degree of polymerization of the copolymer. Recent experiments suggest a much weaker power law than predicted by mean field theory. Our Monte Carlo simulations show a power law which is consistent with these experiments.
Thursday, May 6th 1999, 15:30 |