Polyelectrolyte multilayering on a charged planar surface

The adsorption of highly oppositely charged flexible polyelectrolytes (PEs) on a charged planar substrate is investigated by means of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We study in detail the equilibrium structure of the first few PE layers. The influence of the chain length and of a (extra) nonelectrostatic short range attraction between the polycations and the negatively charged substrate is considered. We show that the stability as well as the microstructure of the PE layers are especially sensitive to the strength of this latter interaction. Qualitative agreement is reached with some recent experiments.