From Brushes and Stars to Charged Polymers

Abstract Chapter 5 discusses how to apply the concepts of polymer solutions developed in Chapter 4 to polymer brushes, block copolymer self-assembly, and solutions of charged polymers. The topics overviewed in this chapter include: the Flory-like and Alexander - de Gennes models of polymer brushes, the Daoud-Cotton model of polymer stars, steric interactions between brush layers, the closed-association model of block copolymer self-assembly in solutions, the block-copolymer self-assembly at surfaces, and properties of polyelectrolyte chains in dilute and semidilute solutions.