Adsorption of Polymers with Various Architectures: Mean Field Theory

(Received 2 November 1995, received in final form and accepted 4 January 1996)

Abstract
This paper discusses within the framework of a mean field theory the adsorption from a very dilute solution of polymers with various architectures: ring polymers, comblike and starlike polymers and diblock copolymers made of one long adsorbing block and one short non-adsorbing block. By changing the architecture, the relative importance of loops and tails in the adsorbed layer is modified. Ring polymers form only loops in the adsorbed layers and do not form tails. The adsorption can be described by the standard ground state dominance approximation. For all the other architectures, the concentration profile inside the adsorbed layer is the same as for the adsorption of a linear homopolymer with an effective number of monomers ( 2N for stars where each arm contains N monomers and 2N/(k+1) for a comb having N monomers and (k-1) branches). The thickness of the adsorbed layer is also calculated in all cases.