Description of poly(ethylenepropylene) confined in nanopores by a modified Rouse model

A recent model for unentangled polymer chains in confinement [M. Dolgushev and M. Krutyeva, Macromol. Theory Simul. 21, 565 (2012)] is scrutinized by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) with respect to its static prediction, the single-chain structure factor. We find a remarkable agreement although the model simplifies the effect of the confinement to a harmonic potential. The effective confinement size from fits of SANS data with the model agrees well with the actual pore size. Starting from this result we discuss the possibility of an experiment on the dynamic structure factor predicted by the model. It turns out that such an experiment would need a large ratio polymer dimension/pore size which is difficult but not impossible to achieve.