Controlling the dynamics of soft spheres: From polymeric to colloidal behavior

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1998 EDP Sciences
, , Citation R. Seghrouchni et al 1998 EPL 42 271 DOI 10.1209/epl/i1998-00241-3

0295-5075/42/3/271

Abstract

We probe the dynamic structure factor of multiarm star polymer solutions in good solvent above the overlap concentration with photon correlation spectroscopy and NMR. With the aid of a mean-field theoretical approach, which accounts for the interplay between the topologically enhanced osmotic pressure and the arm entropic stretching, we identify three mechanisms for relaxing the concentration and density fluctuations: cooperative diffusion, self-diffusion and structural relaxation. These model spherical brushes exhibit a behavior intermediate between polymers and colloids.

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10.1209/epl/i1998-00241-3