Related papers: Entangled Dynamics of a Stiff Polymer
We consider the continuum limit of a recently-introduced model for discretized thick polymers, or tubes. We address both analytically and numerically how the polymer thickness influences the decay of tangent-tangent correlations and find…
The dynamics of elastocapillary thinning in high molecular weight polymer solutions are re-examined using high-speed digital video microscopy. At long times, the evolution of the viscoelastic thread deviates from self-similar exponential…
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…
Polymer composites are ideal candidates for next generation biomimetic soft materials because of their exquisite bottom-up designability. However, the richness of behaviours comes at a price: the need for precise and extensive…
Entangled systems are prevalent in both biological and synthetic materials. This study examines the stable configurations of weaves consisting of two families of intertwined threads, such as warp and weft threads. By analyzing the steepest…
We study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to…
The mechanics of complex soft matter often cannot be understood in the classical physical frame of flexible polymers or rigid rods. The underlying constituents are semiflexible polymers, whose finite bending stiffness ($\kappa$) leads to…
Semiflexible polymers in poor solvents exhibit a rich variety of collapsed morphologies, including globules, toroids, and rodlike bundles, arising from the competition between attractive interactions and chain stiffness. Computer…
Elucidating the physics of a concentrated suspension of ring polymers, or of an ensemble of ring polymers in a complex environment, is an important outstanding question in polymer physics. Many of the characteristic features of these…
We perform large scale three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of unlinked and unknotted ring polymers diffusing through a background gel, here a three-dimensional cubic lattice. Taking advantage of this architecture, we propose a…
Using molecular dynamics simulation, we investigate the effect of confinement on a system that comprises several stiff segmented polymer chains where each chain has similar segments, but length and stiffness of the segments vary among the…
We study the rotational dynamics of a flexible polymer initially wrapped around a rigid rod and unwinding from it. This dynamics is of interest in several problems in biology and constitutes a fundamental instance of polymer relaxation from…
Entangled polymers are an important class of materials for their toughness, processability, and functionalizability. However, physically detailed modeling of highly entangled polymers can prove challenging, especially as one considers…
We visualize entanglements in polymer melts using molecular dynamics simulation. A bead at an entanglement interacts persistently for long times with the non-bonded beads (those excluding the adjacent ones in the same chain). The…
Many native structures of proteins accomodate complex topological motifs such as knots, lassos, and other geometrical entanglements. How proteins can fold quickly even in the presence of such topological obstacles is a debated question in…
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic…
We discuss simulations of a simple model for polymer blends in the framework of the Rouse model. At odds with standard predictions, large dynamic asymmetry between the two components induces strong non-exponentiality of the Rouse modes for…
We present a new apparatus that probes simultaneously the macroscopic mechanical response and the microscopic motion in polymer networks under uni-axial strain. The setup leverages photon correlation imaging, a space- and time-resolved…
We use nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to verify recent tube-model predictions that associative polymer networks exhibit broad stretch fluctuations during elongational flow. Simulations further show that these fluctuating…
The Langevin Equation for cooperative dynamics represents the dynamics of polymer melts with chains of increasing degree of polymerization, covering the full range of behavior from the unentangled to the entangled regime. This equation…