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Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Investigating Single Molecule Adhesion by Atomic Force Spectroscopy
Published on: February 27, 2015
Solvent-dependent critical properties of polymer adsorption
João A Plascak1,2,3, Paulo H L Martins3,4, Michael Bachmann2,3,4
1Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 58051-970 João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil.
Abstract:
Advanced chain-growth computer simulation methodologies have been employed for a systematic statistical analysis of the critical behavior of a polymer adsorbing at a substrate. We use finite-size scaling techniques to investigate the solvent-quality dependence of critical exponents, critical temperature, and the structure of the phase diagram. Our study covers all solvent effects from the limit of super-self-avoiding walks, characterized by effective monomer-monomer repulsion, to poor solvent conditions that enable the formation of compact polymer structures. The results significantly benefit from taking into account corrections to scaling.
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