PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Majid Farzin
TI  - Polymer brush bilayers at thermal equilibrium: A theoretical approach
AID  - 10.1101/316141
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 316141
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/03/316141.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/03/316141.full
AB  - Starting from statistical mechanics of polymers and using density functional theory (DFT) method, I review theory of polymer brush bilayers at thermal equilibrium thorough a novel point of view. Density profiles, brush heights and interpenetration length in terms of molecular parameters and distance between substrates are obtained at thermal equilibrium. With a transparent analytic approach, it is being shown, how polymer brushes balance compression and elasticity when bilayers of brush come into contact. Pressure is calculated and it is shown that substrates might repel, attract or even do not see each other upon varying system parameters. Uniqueness of the results, based on taking deformations of both brushes into account, suggests that existing theories about polymer brush bilayers (blob picture) need highly likely to be reviewed.