title: Curvature elasticity of a grafted polyelectrolyte brush.
abstract: The curvature elasticity of a polyelectrolyte brush monolayer attached to curved surface is investigated theoretically. An analytical method based on the strong-stretching theory for a Gaussian chain is developed to calculate the elastic modulus induced by a polyelectrolyte brush. In particular, the scaling relations for the bending or Gaussian modulus with respect to system parameters related to the electrostatic interaction (degree of ionization and salt concentration) are derived. Using the numerical self-consistent-field theory, the inner structural, free-energy, and elastic moduli are computed for the polyelectrolyte brush with excluded-volume interactions. Compared to the analytical result, the curvature elasticity has a weaker dependence on the system parameters, which is attributed to the linearization for the Poisson-Boltzmann equation in the analytical treatment. Furthermore, our results are compared to the curvature elasticity of a bare charged surface, wherefrom the unique polyelectrolyte brush effect on the surface elasticity is clarified clearly. The scaling relations derived in our paper can serve as a guide to experimental studies on the related systems.
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Shuang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Er-Qiang
authors.initials: EQ
authors.lastname: Chen