2015-04-15
10:40 at HCI J 574

Phase diagram of 2D polymers in poor or good solvents

Thierry Savin

Department of Engineering, Cambridge University

I will briefly present preliminary results on a 2D model of polymer that can predict the configurations adopted by a chain in good or poor solvents. We model a polymer as a self-avoiding walk on square lattice, and introduce simple, trackable expressions for its bending energy and its interaction with the solvent. This model allows us to derive a phase diagram of polymer configurations as a function of the temperature, the chain’s persistence length and the quality of the solvent.