Distribution of conformations and chain ends near the surface of a melt of linear flexible macromolecules

Abstract In a melt of linear flexible macromolecules the conformations adopted by the chains follow the ideal Kuhn random walk distribution, because of the extremely high, but uniform, local conformational attrition factor. Long-range exclusion effects are overwhelmed and pseudoideal conditions prevail. One may assume that at an interface with a melt all but the uppermost segment layers are still ideal in the above sense. This assumption leads to a method allowing the enumeration of conformations according to their end-to-end distance and the determination of the mean square end-toend distance. The result is that coils in the interfacial layer tend to be compressed. The extent of the surface zone of altered end-to-end distribution is scaled by the root mean square end-to-end distance of the coils in the bulk of the melt.