Adsorption of isolated, flexible polymers onto a strongly attracting surface

We investigate by lattice Monte Carlo simulation the kinetics of adsorption of isolated linear homopolymers onto a flat surface with a strong, short-r anged attraction for the segments. We focus on limiting cases corresponding to strong physisorption and chemisorption. initially, the polymer has a co nformation representative of the bulk (dilute) solution, but with a few per ipheral segments in contact with the surface. Subsequent adsorption is trac ked by monitoring a number of mechanical variables. By averaging over initi al configurations, and over appropriately selected time windows along indiv idual trajectories, we determine the adsorption kinetics and find the effec ts of chain length and segment/surface interactions on the characteristic t ime for adsorption, tau(ads). For all situations investigated, tau(ads) inc reases algebraically with the number of segments N; i.e., tau(ads) similar to N-alpha, with alpha being considerably smaller than that for scaling of the bulk relaxation time of the chain, tau(R). We find that alpha depends o n the details of the short-ranged surface/segment interaction potential. Th e results are rationalized with scaling-level analysis.