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Updated: Jul 13, 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
Influence of molecular topology on the static and dynamic properties of single polymer chain in solution
Cuiliu Fu1, Wenze Ouyang, Zhaoyan Sun
1State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
The influence of molecular topology on the structural and dynamic properties of polymer chain in solution with ring structure, three-arm branched structure, and linear structure are studied by molecular dynamics simulation. At the same degree of polymerization (N), the ring-shaped chain possesses the smallest size and largest diffusion coefficient. With increasing N, the difference of the radii of gyration between the three types of polymer chains increases, whereas the difference of the diffusion coefficients among them decreases. However, the influence of the molecular topology on the static and the dynamic scaling exponents is small. The static scaling exponents decrease slightly, and the dynamic scaling exponents increase slightly, when the topology of the polymer chain is changed from linear to ring-shaped or three-arm branched architecture. The dynamics of these three types of polymer chain in solution is Zimm-like according to the dynamic scaling exponents and the dynamic structure factors.
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