title: Detachment of semiflexible polymer chains from a substrate: a molecular dynamics investigation.
abstract: Using Molecular Dynamics simulations, we study the force-induced detachment of a coarse-grained model polymer chain from an adhesive substrate. One of the chain ends is thereby pulled at constant speed off the attractive substrate and the resulting saw-tooth profile of the measured mean force ⟨f⟩ vs height D of the end-segment over the plane is analyzed for a broad variety of parameters. It is shown that the observed characteristic oscillations in the ⟨f⟩-D profile depend on the bending and not on the torsional stiffness of the detached chains. Allowing for the presence of hydrodynamic interactions (HI) in a setup with explicit solvent and dissipative particle dynamics-thermostat, rather than the case of Langevin thermostat, one finds that HI have little effect on the ⟨f⟩-D profile. Also the change of substrate affinity with respect to the solvent from solvophilic to solvophobic is found to play negligible role in the desorption process. In contrast, a changing ratio ε(s)(B)/ε(s)(A) of the binding energies of A- and B-segments in the detachment of an AB-copolymer from adhesive surface strongly changes the ⟨f⟩-D profile whereby the B-spikes vanish when ε(s)(B)/ε(s)(A)<0.15. Eventually, performing an atomistic simulation of (bio)-polymers, we demonstrate that the simulation results, derived from our coarse-grained model, comply favorably with those from the all-atom simulation.
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institut of Poslymer Research Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paturej
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Erbas
authors.affiliation: Institute for Physical Chemistry, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Milchev
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: V G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Rostiashvili
mesh_terms: D000268:Adhesiveness; D000269:Adhesives / Q000737:chemistry*; D000327:Adsorption; D018130:Diamond / Q000737:chemistry; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D000269:Adhesives; D010455:Peptides; D011108:Polymers; D018130:Diamond