title: Analysis of the cluster formation in two-component cylindrical bottle-brush polymers under poor solvent conditions: a simulation study.
abstract: Two-component bottle-brush polymers, where flexible side chains containing N = 20, 35 and 50 effective monomers are grafted alternatingly to a rigid backbone, are studied by Molecular Dynamics simulations, varying the grafting density [Formula: see text] and the solvent quality. Whereas for poor solvents and large enough [Formula: see text] the molecular brush is a cylindrical object with monomers of different type occupying locally the two different halves of the cylinder, for intermediate values of [Formula: see text] an axially inhomogeneous structure of "pearl-necklace" type is formed, where microphase separation between monomers of different type within a cluster takes place. These "pearls" have a strongly non-spherical ellipsoidal shape, due to the fact that several side chains cluster together in one "pearl". We discuss the resulting structures in detail and we present a comparison with the single-component bottle-brush case.
authors: Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany. panagiotis.theodorakis@univie.ac.at
authors: P E
authors: PE
authors: Theodorakis
authors: W
authors: W
authors: Paul
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Binder
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