Conformational transitions of single polymer adsorption in poor solvent: Wetting transition due to molecular...

We report a theory capable of describing conformational transitions for single polymer adsorption in a poor solvent. We show that an additional molecular confinement effect near the contact line can act exactly like line tension, playing a critical role in the behavior of an absorbed polymer chain. Using this theory, distinct conformational states: desorbed globule (DG), surface attached cap (SAC), and adsorbed lens (AL), can be vividly revealed, resembling the drying-wetting transition of a nanodroplet. But the transitions between these states can behave rather differently from those in the usual wetting transitions. The DG-SAC transition is discrete, occurring at the adsorption threshold when the globule size at the desorbed state is equal to the adsorption blob. The SAC-AL transition is smooth for finite chain lengths, but can change to discontinuous in the infinite chain limit, characterized by the different end-to-end exponent 3/8 and the unique crossover exponent 1/4. Distinctive critical exponents near this transition are also determined, indicating that it is an additional universality class of phase transitions. This work also sheds light on nanodrop spreading, wherein the important role played by line tension might simply be a manifestation of the local molecular confinement near the contact line.