Membranes with anchored polymers at the adsorption transition

Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung Kantstr. 55, D-14513 Teltow-Seehof, Germany

Received: 19 June 1996
Accepted: 17 October 1996

Abstract

Polymers which are anchored to membranes exert bending moments onto these membranes. It is shown by general scaling arguments and explicit calculations for ideal chains i) that the polymer-induced "spontaneous” curvature M_sp has the scaling form , where N and ϵ are the chain length and the distance from the adsorption-desorption transition, respectively, and ii) that M_sp changes its sign close to this transition. Thus, if the polymer and the membrane experience effectively attractive and repulsive interactions, the membrane is bent towards and away from the polymer, respectively.