Polymer Physics

Polymer physics is the field of physics that studies polymers, their fluctuations, mechanical properties, as well as the kinetics of reactions involving degradation and polymerisation of polymers and monomers respectively.

While it focuses on the perspective of condensed matter physics, polymer physics is originally a branch of statistical physics. Polymer physics and polymer chemistry are also related with the field of polymer science, where this is considered the applicative part of polymers.

Polymers are large molecules and thus are very complicated for solving using a deterministic method. Yet, statistical approaches can yield results and are often pertinent, since large polymers (i.e., polymers with a large number of monomers) are describable efficiently in the thermodynamic limit of infinite many monomers (although the actual size is clearly finite).

Thermal fluctuations continuously affect the shape of polymers in liquid solutions, and modeling their effect requires using principles from statistical mechanics and dynamics. As a corollary, temperature strongly affects the physical behavior of polymers in solution, causing phase transitions, melts, and so on.

The statistical approach for polymer physics is based on an analogy between a polymer and either a Brownian motion, or other type of a random walk, the self-avoiding walk. The simplest possible polymer model is presented by the ideal chain, corresponding to a simple random walk. Experimental approaches for characterizing polymers are also common, using Polymer characterization methods, such as size exclusion chromatography, Viscometry, Dynamic light scattering, and Automatic Continuous Online Monitoring of Polymerization Reactions (ACOMP) for determining the chemical, physical, and material properties of polymers. These experimental methods also helped the mathematical modeling of polymers and even for a better understanding of the properties of polymers.

• Flory is considered the first scientist establishing the field of polymer physics.
• French scientists contributed a lot since the 70s (e.g. de Gennes, J. des Cloizeaux).
• Doi and Edwards wrote a very famous book in polymer physics.
• Russian and Soviet schools of physics (I. M. Lifshitz, A. Yu. Grosberg, A.R. Khokhlov ) have been very active in the development of polymer physics.