Polymer brushes with nanoinclusions under shear: A molecular dynamics investigation

We use molecular dynamics simulations with a dissipative particle dynamics thermostat to study the behavior of nanosized inclusions (colloids) in a polymer brush under shear whereby the solvent is explicitly included in the simulation. The brush is described by a bead-spring model for flexible polymer chains, grafted on a solid substrate, while the polymer-soluble nanoparticles in the solution are taken as soft spheres whose diameter is about three times larger than that of the chain segments and the solvent. We find that the brush number density profile, as well as the density profiles of the nanoinclusions and the solvent, remains insensitive to strong shear although the grafted chains tilt in direction of the flow. The thickness of the penetration layer of nanoinclusions, as well as their average concentration in the brush, stays largely unaffected even at the strongest shear. Our result manifests the remarkable robustness of polymer brushes with embedded nanoparticles under high shear which could be of importance for technological applications. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3396446]