Related papers: Topological Sieving of Rings According to their Ri…
Ring polymers are characterized by topology-specific entanglements called threadings. In the limit of large rings, it is conjectured that a "topological glass" should emerge due to the proliferation of threadings. In this study, we used…
Understanding how topological constraints affect the dynamics of polymers in solution is at the basis of any polymer theory and it is particularly needed for melts of rings. These polymers fold as crumpled and space-filling objects and,…
Topological constraints (TCs) between polymers determine the behaviour of complex fluids such as creams, oils and plastics. Most of the polymer solutions used every day life employ linear chains; their behaviour is accurately captured by…
The static and dynamic properties of ring polymers in concentrated solutions remains one of the last deep unsolved questions in Polymer Physics. At the same time, the nature of the glass transition in polymeric systems is also not well…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…
Ring polymers are prevalent in natural and engineered systems, including circular bacterial DNA, crown ethers for cation chelation, and mechanical nanoswitches. The morphology and dynamics of ring polymers are governed by the chemistry and…
We study the motion of dispersed nanoprobes in entangled active-passive polymer mixtures. By comparing the two architectures of linear vs. unconcatenated and unknotted circular polymers, we demonstrate that novel, rich physics emerge. For…
Entangled networks of stiff biopolymers exhibit complex dynamic response, emerging from the topological constraints that neighboring filaments impose upon each other. We propose a class of reference models for entanglement dynamics of stiff…
Via large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, we observe the melting of a topological glass of stiff ring polymers by incorporating flexible ring polymers, along an isobaric path. As more flexible ring polymers are introduced, cluster…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…
We investigate experimentally the distribution of configurations of a ring with an elementary topological constraint, a ``figure-8'' twist. Using vibrated granular chains, which permit controlled preparation and direct observation of such a…
Confinement is a versatile and well-established tool to study the properties of polymers either to understand biological processes or to develop new nano-biomaterials. We investigate the conformations of a semiflexible polymer ring in weak…
Trapping macromolecules in nanopits finds multifarious applications in polymer separation, filtering biomolecules etc. However, tuning the locomotion of polymers in channels of nanoscopic dimensions is greatly restricted by the comparative…
Here we report on the translocation of folded polymers through nano-pores using molecular dynamic simulations. Two cases are studied; one in which a folded molecule unfolds upon passage and one in which the folding remains intact as the…
Recent work on the mechanism of polymer crystallization has led to a proposal for the mechanism of thickness selection which differs from those proposed by the surface nucleation theory of Lauritzen and Hoffman and the entropic barrier…
We study of the dynamics of ring polymers confined to diffuse in a background gel at low concentrations. We do this in order to probe the inter-play between topology and dynamics in ring polymers. We develop an algorithm that takes into…
We derive and introduce anisotropic effective pair potentials to coarse-grain solutions of semiflexible rings polymers of various lengths. The system has been recently investigated by means of full monomer-resolved computer simulations,…
Nanowire fluidic tweezers have been developed to gently and accurately capture, manipulate and deliver micro objects. The mechanism behind the capture and release process has not yet been well explained. Utilizing the method of regularized…
Grasping mechanisms must both create and subsequently hold grasps that permit safe and effective object manipulation. Existing mechanisms address the different functional requirements of grasp creation and grasp holding using a single…
In the first part of this work a summary is provided of some recent experiments and theoretical results which are relevant in the research of systems of polymer rings in nontrivial topological conformations. Next, some advances in modeling…