Polymers grafted onto strongly adsorbing surfaces in poor solvents: Stretching, fission, phase separation, and globular micelles in 2D

Using both analytic theory and computer simulation we study the stretching along the surface of a strongly adsorbed polymer chain. In marked contrast to the case of nonadsorbed chains we show that the polymer does not undergo a Rayleigh instability. Instead it deforms steadily into a lens shape. Our results have dramatic consequences for submonolayer films formed from grafted chains. We show that strongly adsorbed chains do not form “octopus” or pinned micelles. Instead they fuse into compact islands, which in the limit of high grafting density can form a continuous network.