SURFACE SEGREGATION IN A POLYMER BLEND - COMPARISON BETWEEN MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION AND MEAN-FIELD THEORY

Monte Carlo simulation of wetting of a solid wall by a polymer blend in the one phase region, for chi = 0, was performed in a compressible system. We varied the wall interaction preference of one of the components and also the blend composition for the fixed interaction with the wall. The results were compared to the prediction of mean-field (MF) theory. We found a good agreement in composition profiles at the wall using the same parameters in the theory and in simulation, without additional fitting. Due to compressibility of our system, interaction of chains with the wall and the coil deformation at the wall small deviations of the total density and thus also of the composition profile from MF theory were found in close vicinity of the wall.