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The non-equilibrium structural and dynamical properties of semiflexible polymers confined to two dimensions are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Three different scenarios are considered: The force-extension relation of…
Dynamics of various biological filaments can be understood within the framework of active polymer models. Here we consider a bead-spring model for a flexible polymer chain in which the active interaction among the beads is introduced via an…
Investigating thermodynamic properties of liquid-solid transitions of flexible homopolymers with elastic bonds by means of multicanonical Monte Carlo simulations, we find crystalline conformations that resemble ground-state structures of…
We study the statistical mechanics of counterion Wigner crystals associated with hexagonal bundles of chiral biopolymers. We show that, due to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking induced by frustration, these Wigner crystals would be…
In this paper we complete the study of the phase diagram and conformational states of a stiff homopolymer. It is known that folding of a sufficiently stiff chain results in formation of a torus. We find that the phase diagram obtained from…
We present Monte Carlo simulation results for square-well homopolymers at a series of bond lengths. Although the model contains only isotropic pairwise interactions, under appropriate conditions this system shows spontaneous chiral symmetry…
By means of sophisticated Monte Carlo methods, we investigate the conformational phase diagram of a simple model for flexible polymers with explicit thickness. The thickness constraint, which is introduced geometrically via the global…
When semi-infinite phononic crystals (PCs) are in contact, localized modes may exist at their boundary. The central question is generally to predict their existence and to determine their stability. With the rapid expansion of the field of…
We develop a theory for manipulating the effective band structure of interacting helical edge states realized on the boundary of two-dimensional time-reversal symmetric topological insulators. For sufficiently strong interaction, an…
Magic-angle helical trilayer graphene relaxes into commensurate moir\'e domains, whose topological and well-isolated set of narrow bands possess ideal characteristics for realizing robust correlated topological phases, compared with other…
We poorly understand the properties of amorphous systems at small length scales, where a continuous elastic description breaks down. This is apparent when one considers their vibrational and transport properties, or the way forces propagate…
The rapid collapse of a polymer, due to external forces or changes in solvent, yields a long-lived `crumpled globule.' The conjectured fractal structure shaped by hierarchical collapse dynamics has proved difficult to establish, even with…
Understanding the contact between solid surfaces is a long standing problem which has a strong impact on the physics of many processes such as adhesion, friction, lubrication and wear. Experimentally, the investigation of solid/solid…
Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we systematically study the effect of chain stiffness on the packing ability of linear polymers composed of hard spheres in extremely confined monolayers, corresponding effectively to 2D films.…
Hydrogels are biphasic, swollen polymer networks where elastic deformation is coupled to nanoscale fluid flow. As a consequence, hydrogels can withstand large strains and exhibit nonlinear, hyperelastic properties. For low-modulus hydrogel…
An infinite hierarchy of layering transitions exists for model polymers in solution under poor solvent or low temperatures and near an attractive surface. A flat histogram stochastic growth algorithm known as FlatPERM has been used on a…
The buckling of thin elastic sheets is a classic mechanical instability that occurs over a wide range of scales. In the extreme limit of atomically thin membranes like graphene, thermal fluctuations can dramatically modify such mechanical…
We investigate the folding and forced-unbinding transitions of adsorbed semiflexible polymer chains using theory and simulations. These processes describe biologically relevant phenomena that include adhesive interactions between proteins…
Mechanically bonded membranes of interlocked ring polymers are a significant generalization of conventional elastic sheets, where connectivity is provided by covalent bonding, and represent a promising class of topological meta-materials.…
We analyze the crystallization and collapse transition of a simple model for flexible polymer chains on simple cubic and face-centered cubic lattices by means of sophisticated chain-growth methods. In contrast to bond-fluctuation polymer…