Related papers: Orientational transition and complexation of DNA w…
The formation of inter-polyelectrolyte complexes from the association of oppositely charged polymers in an electrolyte is studied. The charged polymers are linear oppositely charged polyelectrolytes, with possibly a neutral block. This…
We develop a model of interacting zwitterionic membranes with rotating surface dipoles immersed in a monovalent salt, and implement it in a field theoretic formalism. In the mean-field regime of monovalent salt, the electrostatic forces…
We study a solution of long polyanions (PA) with shorter polycations (PC) and focus on the role of Coulomb interaction. A good example is solutions of DNA and PC which are widely studied for gene therapy. In the solution, each PA attracts…
Screening of a strongly charged macroion by oppositely charged colloidal particles, micelles, or short polyelectrolytes is considered. Due to strong lateral repulsion such multivalent counterions form a strongly correlated liquid at the…
The problem of charged polymer chains (polyelectrolytes) as they adsorb on a planar surface is addressed theoretically. We review the basic mechanisms and theory underlying polyelectrolyte adsorption on a single surface in two situations:…
We study the complex formation between one long polyanion chain and many short oligocation chains by computer simulations. We employ a coarse-grained bead-spring model for the polyelectrolyte chains, and model explicitly the small salt…
We theoretically study the reentrant condensation of a polyelectrolyte in the presence of an oppositely-charged surfactant,a phenomenon whose phase-transition mechanism remains under discussion. We focus on the adsorption and attraction…
This chapter deals with charged polymers (polyelectrolytes) in solution and at surfaces. The behavior of polyelectrolytes is markedly different from that of neutral polymers. In bulk solutions, i.e. disregarding the surface effect, there…
We investigate the electrostatic interactions of zwitterionic membranes immersed in mixed electrolytes composed of mono- and multivalent ions. We show that the presence of monovalent salt is a necessary condition for the existence of a…
Using both theoretical modeling and computer simulations we study a model system for DNA interactions in the vicinity of charged membranes. We focus on the polarization of the mobile charges in the membranes due to the nearby charged rods…
We have adsorbed plasmid PuC19 DNA on a supported bilayer. The mobility of the lipids within the bilayer ensured a 2D equilibrium of the DNA molecule. By varying the fraction of cationic lipids in the membrane, we have tuned the surface…
Bipolar nanopores have powerful rectification properties due to the asymmetry in the charge pattern on the wall of the nanopore. In particular, bipolar nanopores have positive and negative surface charges along the pore axis. Rectification…
Using molecular dynamics simulations with recently developed importance sampling methods, we show that the differential capacitance of a model ionic liquid based double-layer capacitor exhibits an anomalous dependence on the applied…
Anion exchange at positively charged interfaces plays an important role in a variety of physical and chemical processes. However, the molecular scale details of these processes, especially with heavy and large anionic complexes, are not…
Understanding overcharging and charge inversion is one of the long-standing challenges in soft matter and biophysics. To study these phenomena, we employ the modified Gaussian renormalized fluctuation theory, which allows for the…
We study the salt-dependent conformations of dilute flexible polyelectrolytes in solution via computer simulations. Low concentrations of multivalent salt induce the known conformational collapse of individual polyelectrolyte chains, but as…
Variety of conducting heterointerfaces have been made between SrTiO3 substrates and thin capping layers of distinctly different oxide materials that can be classified into polar band insulators (e.g. LaAlO3), polar Mott insulators (e.g.…
The association between polyelectrolytes (PEs) of the same size but opposite charge is systematically studied in terms of the potential of mean force (PMF) along their center-of-mass reaction coordinate via coarse-grained, implicit-solvent,…
We argue that the kosmotropes remain strongly hydrated in the vicinity of a hydrophobic surface, while the chaotropes lose their hydration shell and can become adsorbed to the interface. The mechanism of adsorption is still a subject of…
We examine the interactions between polyelectrolytes (PEs) and uncharged substrates at conditions corresponding to a dielectric discontinuity between the aqueous solution and the substrate. To this end, we vary the relevant system…