Percolation in Polydisperse Polymer Systems: A Computer Simulation Study

The structure of polymer chains at interfaces still is not fully understood. A coarse-grained lattice model is used to study the structure of macromolecules strongly adsorbed on a flat surface. As a result, the polymers are strictly two-dimensional. Chains are flexible and athermal. A dynamic Monte Carlo algorithm consisting of local and non-local modification of chains’ conformations is employed. The scaling behavior of chains’ size is found to be similar to monodisperse systems. It is also shown that the introduction of polydispersity increases values of the percolation threshold, especially for longer chains. The influence of the type of polydispersity on the percolation threshold in two-dimensional polymer films is found to be significant.