Effect of shear on the desorption of oligomers in nanoscopically confined films

Bitsanis et al. J. Chem. Phys. 99, 5520 (1993) found that in nanoscopically confined films between strongly physisorbing surfaces chains with many contacts with the walls are irreversibly adsorbed. When shear is imposed to these systems molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show that the majority of the adsorbed oligomers adopts flat conformations on top of the walls. Although these conformations are characterized by high molecular adsorption energies, the same MD simulations show that desorption is strongly promoted by shear. The underlying mechanism is discussed.