Wall-induced orientational order in athermal semidilute solutions of semiflexible polymers: Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice model.

An athermal solution of semiflexible macromolecules with excluded volume interactions has been studied at various concentrations (dilute, semidilute, and concentrated solutions) in a film of thickness D between two hard walls by grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations of the bond fluctuation lattice model. Analyzing profiles of orientational order parameters across the film, we find that for thick films two phase transitions occur at chemical potentials of the polymers (or polymer densities, respectively) where the bulk polymer solution still is in the disordered isotropic phase. At rather small polymer densities, polymers accumulate at the walls due to an entropic attraction and undergo a transition to two-dimensional nematic order. Due to the properties of the lattice model, this order has Ising character, and the simulation results seem to be compatible with a second-order transition. Increasing the polymer density, nematically ordered "wetting" layers form at both walls; the increase of thickness of these layers is compatible with a logarithmic divergence when the chemical potential of the isotropic-nematic transition in the bulk is approached. In a system of finite width, D, between the walls, this leads to capillary nematization, exhibiting a reduction of the transition chemical potential inversely proportional to D. This transition exists only if D exceeds some critical value Dc, while the transition from the isotropic phase to the two-dimensional nematic state is suggested to persist down to ultrathin films.

Orientational ordering transitions of semiflexible polymers in thin films: a Monte Carlo simulation.

Athermal solutions (from dilute to concentrated) of semiflexible macromolecules confined in a film of thickness D between two hard walls are studied by means of grand-canonical lattice Monte Carlo simulation using the bond fluctuation model. This system exhibits two phase transitions as a function of the thickness of the film and polymer volume fraction. One of them is the bulk isotropic-nematic first-order transition, which ends in a critical point on decreasing the film thickness. The chemical potential at this transition decreases with decreasing film thickness ("capillary nematization"). The other transition is a continuous (or very weakly first-order) transition in the layers adjacent to the hard planar walls from the disordered phase, where the bond vectors of the macromolecules show local ordering (i.e., "preferential orientation" along the x or y axes of the simple cubic lattice, but no long-range orientational order occurs), to a quasi-two-dimensional nematic phase (with the director at each wall being oriented along either the x or y axis), while the bulk of the film is still disordered. When the chemical potential or monomer density increase, respectively, the thickness of these surface-induced nematic layers grows, causing the disappearance of the disordered region in the center of the film.

Conformational changes of a single semiflexible macromolecule near an adsorbing surface: a Monte Carlo simulation.

The properties of a single semiflexible chain tethered to a planar surface with a long-ranged attractive potential are studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. We employ the bond fluctuation lattice model and the Wang-Landau sampling technique. We present the diagram of states for semiflexible chains consisting of N = 64 and 128 monomer units as a function of temperature T and strength of the adsorption potential, epsilon(w), and also compare this with the diagram of states for flexible chains of these two lengths. The diagram of states consists of the regions of a coil, liquid globule, solid isotropic globule, adsorbed coil, and quasi-two-dimensional solid globule with nematic bond order (or quasi-two-dimensional isotropic crystal in the case of a flexible chain). The diagram of states for the flexible case agrees with a result for the same model and a short-ranged attraction to the wall for small values of the attraction strength. For larger values, the transition to the two-dimensional behavior is more gradual in the long-ranged attractive potential. For the range of chain stiffness that we studied, the low-temperature phase in the bulk is an isotropic globule (i.e., a globule without bond order). At the attractive surface, a nematic-type bond order is induced upon adsorption, leading to ordered structures, which can be considered a precursor to the crystalline lamellae forming in real polymers. Other than that, the diagram of states in general is not changed by introducing stiffness of the chains.

Dense orientationally ordered states of a single semiflexible macromolecule: an expanded ensemble Monte Carlo simulation.

Using a coarse-grained model we perform a Monte Carlo simulation of the state behavior of an individual semiflexible macromolecule. Chains consisting of N = 256 and 512 monomer units have been investigated. A recently proposed enhanced sampling Monte Carlo technique for the bond fluctuation model in an expanded ensemble in four-dimensional coordinate space was applied. The algorithm allows one to accelerate the sampling of statistically independent three-dimensional conformations in a dense globular state. We found that the temperature of the intraglobular liquid-solid transition decreases with increasing chain stiffness. We have investigated the possible intraglobular orientationally ordered (i.e., liquid-crystalline) structures and obtained a diagram of states for chains consisting of N = 256 monomer units. This diagram contains regions of stability of coil, two spherical globules (liquid and solid), and rod-like globule conformations. Transitions between the globular states are rounded first-order ones since the states of liquid, solid, and cylinder-like globules do have different internal symmetry.