Eur. Phys. J. B 3, 365-375 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050324

Monolayers of diblock copolymer at the air-water interface: the attractive monomer-surface case

¹ Physico-chimie Curie (UMR 168 CNRS-Curie) , Institut Curie, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
² Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1393, USA
³ Institut C. Sadron, 6 rue Boussingault, 67083 Strasbourg Cedex, France
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel

Corresponding author: ^a andelman@post.tau.ac.il

Received: 19 June 1997
Revised: 2 February 1998
Accepted: 11 February 1998
Published online: 15 June 1998

Abstract

We have studied both experimentally and theoretically the surface pressure isotherms of copolymers of polystyrene-polyethyleneoxide (PS-PEO) at the air-water interface. The SCMF (single chain mean-field) theory provides a very good agreement with the experiments for the entire range of surface densities and is consistent with the experiments if an adsorption energy per PEO monomer at the air-water interface of about one k_{B T} is taken. In addition, the chain density profile has been calculated for a variety of surface densities, from the dilute to the very dense ones. The SCMF approach has been complemented by a mean-field approach in the low density regime, where the PEO chains act as a two-dimensional layer. Both theoretical calculations agree with the experiments in this region.