Orientation and shape of flexible polymers in a slit (original) (raw)

The shape and orientation of a polymer in a good solvent confined between two parallel plates is investigated by Monte Carlo simulations of self-avoiding random walks on a simple cubic lattice. Decreasing the width of the slit, the coil starts, due to its anisotropic shape, to orient long before its shape changes. Only after the longest principal axis is aligned considerably parallel to the plates, the coil is squeezed. Using a scaled distance between the plates, a corresponding state behavior as a function of chain length is found. The results are in good agreement with predictions based on an analytical rigid ellipsoid model with principal axes’ lengths set equal to the span lengths along the principal axes of inertia of the self-avoiding random walk.