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Updated: Oct 3, 2026

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: September 26, 2016
Mobility of polymer chains confined at a free surface
Y Pu1, M H Rafailovich, J Sokolov
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2275, USA.
Abstract:
Dynamic secondary ion mass spectrometry was used to investigate the chain mobility of polystyrene (MW ranging from 4.3 to 957 kg/mol) at the free surface. The data show that the diffusion coefficient was reduced relative to the bulk value within a distance, d < or = 4R(g), from the surface and scaled as 1/N(2.5) at fixed d. These results are in excellent agreement with self-consistent field calculations of the surface segmental distribution and provide the first direct confirmation of various theoretical models that predict asymmetric segmental fluctuation which arises from surface induced orientation of polymer chains.
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