A simple model for forces between surfaces bearing grafted polymers applied to data on adsorbed block copolymers

Abstract

We have developed a simple model for forces between adsorbed block copolymers based on terminally attached chains. From this model arises a pair of nondimensional variables, a dimensionless distance, ∂, and a dimensionless energy j. We scale our measurements on the forces between various di- and tri-block copolymers of styrene and vinyl pyridine adsorbed onto mica surfaces using these two dimensionless variables. All our data on block copolymer force-distance profiles falls reasonably well onto one universal curve in terms of ∂ and j. © 1998.