Theoretical Studies of Relaxation and Ionic Transport in Polymers

Abstract

This work is devoted to transport processes in dense polymer systems, with emphasis on ion transport in polymer electrolytes. In polymeric systems, orders of magnitude lie between the time scales of relevant microscopic processes and the time scales on which long--range transport takes place. A direct integration of the microscopic equations of motion up to the diffusive regimes with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is hardly possible. Hence coarse--grained models accessible by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are of particular value. With such models we studied relaxation times in pure polymer melts and ion diffusion in polymer networks.