Non-Equilibrium Dynamics of Single polymer Adsorption to Solid Surfaces

Abstract

Adsorption of polymers to surfaces is crucial for understanding many fundamental processes in nature. Recent experimental studies indicate that the adsorption dynamics is dominated by non-equilibrium effects. We investigate the adsorption of a single polymer of length $N$ to a planar solid surface in the absence of hydrodynamic interactions. We find that for weak adsorption energies the adsorption time scales $\sim N^{(1+2\nu )/(1+\nu )}$, where $\nu$ is the Flory exponent for the polymer. We argue that in this regime the single chain adsorption is closely related to a field-driven polymer translocation through narrow pores. Surprisingly, for high adsorption energies the adsorption time becomes longer, as it scales $\sim N^{(1+\nu )}$, which is explained by strong stretching of the unadsorbed part of the polymer close to the adsorbing surface. These two dynamic regimes are separated by an energy scale that is characterised by non-equilibrium contributions during the adsorption process.

11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, substantial added material, to appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter as a Fast Track Communication

References in corpus (13)

• Massive Field-Theory Approach to Surface Critical Behavior in Three-Dimensional Systems
• Anomalous Dynamics of Unbiased Polymer Translocation through a Narrow Pore
• Non-Equilibrium in Adsorbed Polymer Layers
• Pore-blockade Times for Field-Driven Polymer Translocation
• Passage Times for Unbiased Polymer Translocation through a Narrow Pore
• Irreversibility and Polymer Adsorption
• Hydrodynamic correlations in the translocation of biopolymer through a nanopore: theory and multiscale simulations
• Irreversible Adsorption from Dilute Polymer Solutions
• Passage Times for Polymer Translocation Pulled through a Narrow Pore
• Polymer Translocation out of Planar Confinements
• Reaching large lengths and long times in polymer dynamics simulations
• The polymer mat: Arrested rebound of a compressed polymer layer
• Adsorption Kinetics of a Single Polymer on a Solid Plane

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Anomalous Polymer Dynamics Is Non-Markovian: Memory Effects and The Generalized Langevin Equation Formulation
• Rouse Modes of Self-avoiding Flexible Polymers
• Anomalous dynamics of DNA hairpin folding
• Probabilistic Phase Space Trajectory Description for Anomalous Polymer Dynamics
• Anomalous zipping dynamics and forced polymer translocation
• Generalised Langevin Equation Formulation for Anomalous Diffusion in the Ising Model at the Critical Temperature
• Approximate dynamical eigenmodes of the Ising model with local spin-exchange moves
• Polymer Chain Adsorption on a Solid Surface: Scaling Arguments and Computer Simulations