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Nature 406, 146 (13 July 2000) | doi:10.1038/35018166;

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Materials science: Diffusion of a polymer |[lsquo]|pancake|[rsquo]|

Thread-like chains of flexible polymers that adsorb to a solid surface assume a flat |[lsquo]|pancake|[rsquo]| conformation when the surface coverage is low and are only able to diffuse in two dimensions because so many segments are adsorbed. Here we show that the centre-of-mass diffusion coefficient of the polymer chain, measured at dilute coverage to ensure minimal chain–chain interaction, has a strong power-law dependence on the degree of polymerization.

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