Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Ion Beam Treatment of Polyethylene

Abstract

A polymer like polyethylene (PE) has attracted intense research exploits in recent years due to their inherent versatile properties like high optical clarity, mechanical properties, light weight and high packing density. PE is the simplest of all commercial polymers used for making catheters, meshes, artificial joint, drug delivery packages (biomedical applications), light emitting diode, electrical bio-sensing, solid state battery, and plastic containers. Over the years, several techniques have been employed to enhance the properties of the polymer surface which include surface etching, laser deposition, plasma deposition, ion implantation technologies and doping. However, this study is concerned with ion-beam sputtering of PE to investigate its sputtering yield dependence. Moreover, molecular dynamics simulations of a PE system were performed to deduce the thermodynamics properties of the system at relatively high temperature (700 K). The results show that the sputtering yield of PE system is dependent on the incident angles and the ion energies. Additionally, the peak of the sputtering yield was found to be around 83° incident angle. Also, the temperature of the PE system varies with the time steps imposed on it. Finally, the structural and dynamical properties of the PE show minimal fluctuations as the density of the polymer linearly increases across the duration.