2018/09/11 by Nicolás A. García, Jean-Louis Barrat, Jean‐Louis Barrat
Chemical Engineering · Engineering · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Block Copolymer Self-Assembly #Chemical engineering #Chemical physics #Composite material #Engineering #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Geometry #Materials science #Mathematics #Nanotechnology #Physics #Polymer #Polymer science #Quantum #Quantum entanglement #Quantum mechanics #Reduction (mathematics) #Rheology and Fluid Dynamics Studies #Thin film #cond-mat.soft #physics.chem-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01884
28 pages, 10 figures
arxiv created 2018/09/11 · openalex publication_date 2018/11/28 · arxiv updated 2019/03/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report simulation results on melts of entangled linear polymers confined in a free-standing thin film. We study how the geometric constraints imposed by the confinement alter the entanglement state of the system compared to the equivalent bulk system using various observables. We find that the confinement compresses the chain conformation uniaxially, decreasing the volume pervaded by the chain, which in turn reduces the number of the accessible interchain contact that could lead to entanglements. This local and nonuniform effect depends on the position of the chain within the film. We also test a recently presented theory that predicts how the number of entanglements decreases with geometrical confinement.