Inwardly curved polymer brushes : Concave is not like Convex Auteur(s): Manghi Manoel, Aubouy Miguel, Gay Cyprien, Ligoure C. (Article) Publié: European Physical Journal E, vol. 5 p.519-530 (2001) Texte intégral en Openaccess : Ref HAL: hal-00123861_v1 Ref Arxiv: cond-mat/0102092 Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS Exporter : BibTex | endNote Résumé: Inwardly curved polymer brushes are present in cylindrical and spherical micelles or in membranes tubes and vesicles decorated with anchored polymers, and influence their stability. We consider such polymer brushes in good solvent and show that previous works, based on a self-similar concentric structure of the brush, are physically inconsistent. We use scaling laws to derive very simply the leading term of the free energy in the high curvature limit, where the osmotic pressure is the relevant physical ingredient. We also derive the complete conformation at all curvatures using a self-consistent field approach. The free energy is computed therefrom using a local scaling description. Commentaires: rev. version, 12 pages plus 9 figures, PACS : Figure 1 modified. In introduction, discussion added on concentration gradients near the edge of the brush. |