화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.117, No.5, 2351-2358, 2002
Corrections to the strong-stretching theory of polymer brushes due to the entropy of the free ends
The entropy associated with the free ends of a polymer brush is incorporated into the standard analytical strong-stretching theory (SST). The resulting corrections are found to have a significant effect on the end-segment distribution function, the self-consistent field, the brush profile, and the polymer trajectories. This alone is enough to bring many of the SST predictions into good agreement with the more complete numerical self-consistent field theory (SCFT). Furthermore, the corrections, in most cases, obey simple scaling expressions that remain accurate down to experimentally relevant grafting densities. This encouraging result suggests that, with further corrections, an analytical SST could be developed capable of quantitatively competing with SCFT.