Figure 3.

Anomalous diffusion regime for bond formation following an energy (ε)-jump up from a state with higher concentration of open stickers $c_{\mathit{open}}^i$ to a state with lower concentration $c_{\mathit{open}}^f$ of open stickers $c_{\mathit{open}}^i>c_{\mathit{open}}^f>c_{\mathit{open}}^{\ast }$. The red circles are anomalously diffusing open stickers that form bonds, shown as pairs of green circles as soon as their exploration volumes (depicted as dotted circles) overlap. The transient “snapshots” of open stickers in the polymer network are shown at different times t, while ${\tau }_{\mathit{open}}^i$ (eq. (24)) and ${\tau }_{\mathit{open}}^f$ (eq. (25)) denote the open sticker lifetimes for initial and final equilibrium states. The grey lines represent dangling chains. The dim thin grey lines depict chemically cross-linked network chains.