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Updated: Jun 22, 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
Absence of reptation in highly confined polymers
1Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
Abstract:
We present results of mechanical stress relaxation measurements on polymers confined at the air-water interface in the form of a monolayer. Systematic measurements allow, to our knowledge, for the first time, observation of the scaling of the stress relaxation time of the highly confined polymers as a function of both surface concentration and molecular weight. The observed scaling is found to be very close to that expected for motion of unentangled polymer solutions with hydrodynamic interactions. Our experimental observations thus clearly rule out the possibility of entanglement and hence reptation as a mode of relaxation in such highly confined polymeric systems.
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