Hierarchical simulations of hybrid polymer–solid materials

Abstract

Complex polymer–solid materials have gained a lot of attention during the last 2–3 decades due to the fundamental physical problems and the broad spectrum of technological applications in which they are involved. Therefore, significant progress concerning the simulations of such hybrid soft–hard nanostructured systems has been made in the last few years. Simulation techniques vary from quantum to microscopic (atomistic) up to mesoscopic (coarse-grained) level. Here we give a short overview of simulation approaches on model polymer–solid interfacial systems for all different levels of description. In addition, we also present a brief outlook concerning the open questions in this field, from the point of view of both physical problems and computational methodologies.