Density and conformation with relaxed substrate, bulk, and interface in electrophoretic deposition of polymer chains

Characteristics of relaxed density profile and conformation of polymer chains are studied by a Monte Carlo simulation on a discrete lattice in three dimensions using different segmental (kink-jump K, crank-shaft C, reptation R) dynamics. Three distinct density regimes, substrate, bulk, and interface, are identified. With the KC segmental dynamics we find that the substrate coverage grows with a power-law, ds ∝ t γ with a field dependent nonuniversal exponent γ = 0.23+0.7E. The bulk volume fraction db and the substrate polymer density (ds) increases exponentially with the field (db ∝ E 0.4, ds ∝ E 0.2) in the low field regime. The interface polymer density df increases with the molecular weight. With the KCR segmental dynamics, bulk and substrate density decreases linearly with the temperature at high temperatures. The bulk volume fraction is found to decay with the molecular weight, db ∝ L −0.11 c . The radius of gyration remains Gaussian in all density regions.