Pulling adsorbed polymers from surfaces with the AFM: stick versus slip, peeling versus gliding

Abstract

We consider the response of an adsorbed polymer that is pulled by an AFM within a simple geometric framework. We separately consider the cases of i) fixed polymer-surface contact point, ii) sticky case where the polymer is peeled off from the substrate, and iii) slippery case where the polymer glides over the surface. The resultant behavior depends on the value of the surface friction coefficient and the adsorption strength. Our resultant force profiles in principle allow to extract both from non-equilibrium force-spectroscopic data.

6 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in Europhys. Lett., http://www.edpsciences.org/journal/index.cfm?edpsname=epl

References in corpus (2)

• Friction Laws for Elastic Nano-Scale Contacts
• Force-induced desorption of a linear polymer chain adsorbed on an attractive surface

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Forced-induced desorption of a polymer chain adsorbed on an attractive surface - Theory and Computer Experiment
• Polymer Detachment Kinetics from Adsorbing Surface: Theory, Simulation and Similarity to Infiltration into Porous Medium
• The escape transition of a compressed star polymer: Self-consistent field predictions tested by simulation