title: Scaling Behavior and Segment Concentration Profile of Densely Grafted Polymer Brushes Swollen in Vapor.
abstract: The scaling of the thickness, hs, of a densely grafted polymer brush of chain length N and grafting density σ swollen in vapor agrees quantitatively with the scaling reported by Kuhl et al. for densely grafted brushes swollen in liquid. Deep in the brush, next to the substrate, the shape of the segment concentration profile is the same whether the brush is swollen by liquid or by vapor. Differences in the segment concentration profile are manifested primarily in the swollen brush interface with the surrounding fluid. The interface of the polymer brush swollen in vapor is much more abrupt than that of the same brush swollen in liquid. This has implications for the compressibility of the swollen brush surface and for fluctuations at that surface.
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron , Akron, Ohio 44325, United States.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology , Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899, United States.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland , College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.|Department of Chemistry, Bogazici University , Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Bulent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Akgun
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines , Golden, Colorado 80401, United States.|Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) , Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Renfeng
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Chemical and Engineering Materials Division, Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, United States.
authors.forename: James F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Browning
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines , Golden, Colorado 80401, United States.
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron , Akron, Ohio 44325, United States.
authors.forename: Mark D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Foster