Figure 1: Comparison between miscible and immiscible polymer brush systems.
From: Solvent-induced immiscibility of polymer brushes eliminates dissipation channels
The top panels show the schematic setup and chemical formulas of the experimental systems for symmetric (a) and asymmetric (b) contacts. Experimental (triangles) and simulated (crosses) friction traces are shown in c and d for the symmetric and the asymmetric cases, respectively. Friction forces F are normalized by the steady-state friction Fsssymm of the respective symmetric systems. The solid lines are fits to a shape function, which depends only on two non-dimensional numbers. Snapshots35 of the simulation cell are shown in e and f. In the latter, polymers belonging to different brushes are coded with different colours (blue) and (orange), even in the symmetric case, to better visualize the brush overlap. Solvent particles are single coloured in the symmetric case, whereas two coloured in the asymmetric system.
