title: Diffusion of small particles in a solid polymeric medium.
abstract: We analyze diffusion of small particles in a solid polymeric medium taking into account a short-range particle-polymer interaction. The system is modeled by a particle diffusion on a ternary lattice where the sites occupied by polymer segments are blocked, the ones forming the hull of the chains correspond to the places at which the interaction takes place, and the rest are voids, in which the diffusion is free. In the absence of interaction the diffusion coefficient shows only a weak dependence on the polymer chain length and its behavior strongly resembles the usual site percolation. In the presence of interactions the diffusion coefficient (and especially its temperature dependence) shows a nontrivial behavior depending on the sign of interaction and on whether the voids and the hulls of the chains percolate or not. The temperature dependence may be Arrhenius-like or strongly non-Arrhenius, depending on parameters. The analytical results obtained within the effective medium approximation are in qualitative agreement with those of Monte Carlo simulations.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstr. 15, D-12489 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Camboni
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koher
authors.forename: I M
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Sokolov