The Equilibrium Theory of Inhomogeneous Polymers

This is an open access title. It is available to read and download as a free PDF version on Oxford Academic and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. The Equilibrium Theory of Inhomogeneous Polymers provides an introduction to the field-theoretic methods and computer simulation techniques that are used in the design of structured polymeric fluids. By such methods, the principles that dictate equilibrium self-assembly in systems ranging from block and graft copolymers, to polyelectrolytes, liquid crystalline polymers, and polymer nanocomposites can be established. Building on an introductory discussion of single-polymer statistical mechanics, the book provides a detailed treatment of analytical and numerical techniques for addressing the conformational properties of polymers subjected to spatially-varying potential fields. This problem is shown to be central to the field-theoretic description of interacting polymeric fluid