Molecular dynamics simulation on the effect of the distance between SWCNTs for short polymers diffusion among single wall carbon nanotubes

In this work, we simulated the diffusion of polymers with different length (N) among single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The scaling relation between the diffusion coefficient (D) and the chain length (N) was investigated. The effect of the distance between SWCNTs on the scaling relation was also discussed. The polymers diffusion follows D ∝ N−1.14±0.03 among the SWCNTs with large distance. On the other hand, the scaling is D ∝ N−1.90±0.09 when polymers are among the SWCNTs with small distance. The exponent in the scaling relation increases with the distance between SWCNTs decreasing. Moreover the diffusion shows anisotropy in our simulations.