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Updated: Oct 18, 2025

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: September 26, 2016
Effects of chain length on Rouse modes and non-Gaussianity in linear and ring polymer melts
Shota Goto1, Kang Kim1, Nobuyuki Matubayasi1
1Division of Chemical Engineering, Department of Materials Engineering Science, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan.
Abstract:
The dynamics of ring polymer melts are studied via molecular dynamics simulations of the Kremer-Grest bead-spring model. Rouse mode analysis is performed in comparison with linear polymers by changing the chain length. Rouse-like behavior is observed in ring polymers by quantifying the chain length dependence of the Rouse relaxation time, whereas a crossover from Rouse to reptation behavior is observed in linear polymers. Furthermore, the non-Gaussian parameters of the monomer bead displacement and chain center-of-mass displacement are analyzed. It is found that the non-Gaussianity of ring polymers is remarkably suppressed with slight growth for the center-of-mass dynamics at long chain length, which is in contrast to the growth in linear polymers for both the monomer bead and center-of-mass dynamics.
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