Amir Amini, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005 and Marc Robert, Rice Quantum Institute, and Richard E. Smally Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005.
Using scaling arguments, we show how the diffusivity of a polymer chain in a colloidal suspension varies with the extent of the confinement and the polymerization index. In particular, we study the nature of the crossover from one- to two-dimensional diffusion. The predictions are compared with the Brownian dynamics simulations that take the hydrodynamic interactions into account.