Related papers: Packaging stiff polymers in small containers: A mo…
A series of simulations aimed at elucidating the self-assembly dynamics of spherical virus capsids is described. This little-understood phenomenon is a fascinating example of the complex processes that occur in the simplest of organisms.…
Experiments using nanofluidic devices have proven effective in characterizing the physical properties of polymers confined to small cavities. Two recent studies using such methods examined the organization and dynamics of two DNA molecules…
DNA translocation through nanopores is one of the most promising strategies for the next-generation sequencing technologies. Most part of experimental and numerical works has focused on polymer translocation biased by electrophoresis, where…
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…
At the cutting edge of materials science, matter is designed to self-organize into structures that perform a wide range of functions. The past two decades have witnessed major innovations in the versatility of building blocks, ranging from…
Semiflexible polymers are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems, where their intermediate rigidity gives rise to rich structural and dynamical behavior. Confinement plays a central role in these behaviors, as spatial restrictions can…
We investigate the tight packing of nematic polymers inside a confining hard sphere. We model the polymer {\sl via} the continuum Frank elastic free energy augmented by a simple density dependent part as well as by taking proper care of the…
The packing of hard spheres (HS) of diameter $\sigma$ in a cylinder has been used to model experimental systems, such as fullerenes in nanotubes and colloidal wire assembly. Finding the densest packings of HS under this type of confinement,…
Polymer filaments form the foundation of biology from cell scaffolding to DNA. Their study and fabrication play an important role in a wide range of processes from tissue engineering to molecular machines. We present a simple method to…
Polymer composites are ubiquitous in biology and industry alike, owing to their emergent desirable mechanical properties not attainable in single-species systems. At the same time, polymer topology has been shown to play a key role in…
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.…
Recent experiments have been able to visualise chromosome organization in fast-growing E.coli cells. However, the mechanism underlying the spatio-temporal organization remains poorly understood. We propose that the DNA adopts a specific…
Elastic properties and internal states of isotropic sphere packings are studied by numerical simulations. Several numerical protocols to assemble dense configurations are compared. One, which imitates experiments with lubricated contacts,…
We study the conformations of a semiflexible chain, confined in nano-scaled spherical cavities, under two distinct processes of confinement. Radial contraction and packaging are employed as two confining procedures. The former method is…
DNA plays a special role in polymer science not just because of the highly selective recognition of complementary single DNA strands but also because bacteria can express DNA chains that are very long yet perfectly monodisperse. The latter…
The transport of polymers with folded configurations across membrane pores is investigated theoretically by analyzing simple discrete stochastic models. The translocation dynamics is viewed as a sequence of two events: motion of the folded…
It is commonly believed that the most efficient way to pack a finite number of equal-sized spheres is by arranging them tightly in a cluster. However, mathematicians have conjectured that a linear arrangement may actually result in the…
We discuss the entropy of a circular polymer under a topological constraint. We call it the {\it topological entropy} of the polymer, in short. A ring polymer does not change its topology (knot type) under any thermal fluctuations. Through…
While the dynamics of polymer chains in equilibrium media is well understood by now, the polymer dynamics in active non-equilibrium environments can be very different. Here we study the dynamics of polymers in a viscous medium containing…