Simulation study on the conformational properties of an adsorbed polymer on a nanoparticle

The conformational properties of a polymer chain adsorbed on an attractive spherical nanoparticle are studied by using Monte Carlo simulations. The adsorption degree of polymer is described by the number of adsorbed monomers na and the length of adsorbed block la. The configuration of the adsorbed polymer on a nanoparticle is described by trains, loops, and tails. We find three different structures for the adsorbed polymer: a structure with trains, loops, and tails at small polymer-nanoparticle interaction strength εpn, a structure with a train and a tail at large εpn, and a structure with trains and loops at large na. In addition, we find that the mean number of adsorbed monomers <na > is scaled with la as <na > ~ laα at εpn ≥ 1, and the exponent α increases with εpn. Our results indicate that both the adsorption degree and the configuration of the adsorbed polymer are dependent on the polymer-nanoparticle interaction strength, the number of adsorbed monomers, and the length of adsorbed block.