Driven Chain Macromolecule in a Heterogeneous Membrane-Like Medium

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations are performed to study the conformational relaxation of a large polymer chain driven into a heterogeneous (membranelike) substrate on a discrete lattice. Chains are created on trails of constrained self-avoiding walks (SAW) on the lattice. Kink–jump, crank–shaft, and reptation moves are used to move segments of chains. Short chains of length L _sc are driven by a field E ₁ toward an impenetrable substrate to design a membrane medium with mobile chain segments. A long chain of length L _lc is then driven by a field E ₂ into the membrane medium and is subsequently allowed to relax in a field E ₃. Radius of gyration R _g and end-to-end distance R _e of the long chain are examined. The relaxation of the conformation of the long chain and its magnitude is found to depend on the initial (predeposition) conformation of the chain, i.e., on E ₂. For a relatively relaxed initial conformation (at E ₂ = 0.1), the longitudinal component of the radius of gyration (R _gz ) is found to decay with the driving field E ₃ with a power law, R _gz ∝ E ₃ ^ν where ν ≃ 0.1 at low field (E ₃ ≤ 0.1) and ν ≃ 1/3 at high field E ₃ ≥ 0.1.