Designing of type-I polymeric superlattices using genetic and ant algorithms: A comparative study

Abstract

Genetic and ant algorithms, a class of metaheuristic algorithms, have been applied in combination with the negative factor counting method to the designing of copolymers to find the optimum concentrations of the constituent homopolymers which would give the most conducting copolymer (with minimum band-gap and maximum delocalization). Quasi-one dimensional model ternary polymeric superlattices belonging to type-I have been investigated using both genetic and ant algorithms and a comparative study of the results has been made. Further the dependence of the optimized results on factors like the random sequence generated (depending on the seed used) has been investigated. It has been found that the band gap, of the copolymers studied, lies close to that of the constituent lowest band gap homopolymer. The optimized solutions are nearly seed independent. Also, the results obtained from both the algorithms are found to be more or less the same.