Structural relaxation and dynamic heterogeneity in a polymer melt at attractive surfaces.
Molecular dynamics simulations of polymer melts at flat and structured surfaces reveal that, for the former, slow dynamics and increased dynamic heterogeneity for an adsorbed polymer is due to densification of the polymer in a surface layer, while, for the latter, the energy topography of the surface plays the dominant role in determining dynamics of interfacial polymer. The dramatic increase in structural relaxation time for polymer melts at the attractive structured surface is largely the result of dynamic heterogeneity induced by the surface and does not resemble dynamics of a bulk melt approaching T(g).
Smith
Grant D
GD
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, 122 South Central Campus Drive, Room 304, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Bedrov
Dmitry
D
Borodin
Oleg
O