Self-consistent field theory polymer molecule

Perhaps the simplest interfacial agent one can imagine is a small molecule. It is easy to see that, if a solvent that is soluble in both polymers is present, then, by segregation at the interface between polymers a and b it decreases the number of a-b interactions, albeit at the cost of a loss of translational entropy. Calculations of this effect have been performed using self-consistent field theory (Hong and Noolandi 1981). For a situation in which two homopolymers have an interaction parameter of 0.005, they found that adding a volume... 

The conformations of the molecules in the polymer layer and the resulting steric interaction energy can be calculated by means of a numerical self-consistent field model. The free energy of the polymer layers then is minimized by considering all possible conformations (including adsorbed segments) of the chains. We will not discuss the theory because it can rarely... 

The basic idea of these theories is to look at the distribution of conformations of a chain molecule attached to the surface. The conformational probability distribution function is written in terms of the non-local interaction field induced by the other chain molecules. This field is anisotropic, i.e., it depends on the direction perpendicular to the surface, because the presence of the surface and the inhomogeneous variation of the density of polymer segments and solvent molecules as a function of the distance from the surface. The non-local mean-field is determined by packing constraints that take into account the fact that the volume (at all distances from the surface) must be filled by polymer segments or solvent molecules. These self-consistent criteria represent the incompressibility assumption at all distances from the surface. 

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