THEORY OF MONOLAYERS OF NON-GAUSSIAN POLYMER-CHAINS GRAFTED ONTO A SURFACE .1. GENERAL-THEORY

A theory describing layers of polymer chains grafted to a flat surface (polymer 'brush') is developed. We consider a brush of chains with ar bitrary extensibility and, within the framework of molecular field the ory, we suggest a general scheme for calculating the self-consistent p seudo-potential, which determines the structure of the brush. This pot ential appears to be defined only by the mechanism of extensibility an d is independent of the interactions between chains in the brush. A mo del potential for freely jointed chains (FJC) was calculated and used for describing an FJC polymer brush in good solvent conditions. We fou nd good agreement between our results and the numerical calculations o f Skvortsov et al.