Wetting of a Polymer Brush by a Chemically Identical Polymer Melt

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We present a theoretical study of the conformations of a polymer brush (made of linear macromolecules chemically anchored to a flat, solid interface) when it is exposed to a molten, compatible polymer. At large brush grafting densities σ and melt molecular weights P, the melt only penetrates the brush over a distance λ that is small, compared to the brush thickness. For P > N 2/3 σ -2/3, the penetration length λ ≈ a σ -1/3 N 1/3 (Leibler et al . Proceedings of the OUMS Conference, Osaka, Japan, June, 1993) is associated with partial wetting. For P < N 2/3 σ -2/3, although wetting is complete (as was predicted by Leibler et al ), we find that penetration is still partial: λ = a σ -1 NP -1 . There should be implications in interfacial rheology and in wetting dynamics.