The Flory ideality hypothesis states that flexible polymer chains in a melt assume the shape of three-dimensional random walks leading to so called Gaussian coils. The basis of this hypothesis is that any local conformational information decays exponentially along the chain backbone and thus has no influence on the long range conformation. Additionally it is argued that the excluded volume shielding of neigbor chains cancels out any swelling effects. Neutron scattering (NS) experiments dating back 30 years confirm the postulated Gaussian coil shape of polymers. This leads to a pillar of polymer theory: Any flexible polymer can be described as a three-dimensional random walk. Advances in simulation technics and computing power have opened the door to the possibility of studing very long chains. This allowed for a closer look at the chain structure of polymer melts and revealed deviations from ideality. This deviation is very slight and thus great care must be taken to distinguish it from noise. So far the deviation from the Gaussian coil structure was only studied for coarse-grained models. The scope of this thesis is to explore if these deviations are also measurable in atomistically realistic simulations and modern day NS experiments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CCSD/oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-01064158 |
| Date | 17 May 2013 |
| Creators | Zabel, Julia |
| Publisher | Université de Strasbourg |
| Source Sets | CCSD theses-EN-ligne, France |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PhD thesis |
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