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Thermally-driven semi-crystalline polymer networks are capable to achieve both the one-way shape-memory effect and two-way shape-memory effect under stress and stress-free conditions, therefore representing an appealing class of polymers…
The Rouse model can be regarded as the standard model to describe the dynamics of a short polymer chain under melt conditions. In this contribution, we explicitly check one of the fundamental assumptions of this model, namely that of a…
Recent experiments have demonstrated that the nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin is dramatically altered in the presence of a flexible cross-linker such as the abundant cytoskeletal protein filamin. The basic…
A statistical mechanical description of flexible and semi-flexible polymer chains in a poor solvent is developed in the constant force and constant distance ensembles. We predict the existence of many intermediate states at low temperatures…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
Plastic deformation of micron-scale crystalline solids exhibits stress-strain curves with significant sample-to-sample variations. It is a pertinent question if this variability is purely random or to some extent predictable. Here we show,…
The flow and deformation of macromolecules is ubiquitous in nature and industry, and an understanding of this phenomenon at both macroscopic and microscopic length scales is of fundamental and practical importance. Here we present the…
Single-molecule force-extension experiments have allowed quantitative measurements of the mechanical responses of biomolecules to applied forces explaining their roles in key biological functions. Electrophoretic stretching of charged…
The fluctuation theorem for entropy production is a remarkable symmetry of the distribution of produced entropy that holds universally in non-equilibrium steady states with Markovian dynamics. However, in systems with slow degrees of…
We study the conformations of polymer chains in a poor solvent, with and without bending rigidity, by means of a simple statistical mechanics model. This model can be exactly solved for chains of length up to N=55 using exact enumeration…
The elastic modulus $G$ of a polymer network depends notably on parameters such as the initial concentration of the monomers before the synthesis ($\rho_0$), the density of the cross-linker, or the topology of the network. Understanding how…
We performed molecular dynamics simulations to study equilibrium and flow properties of a liquid in a nano-channel with confining surfaces coated with a layer of grafted semiflexible polymers. The coverage spans a wide range of grafting…
We construct and analyze a model for a disordered linear spring network with anisotropy. The modeling is motivated by, for example, granular systems, nematic elastomers, and ultimately cytoskeletal networks exhibiting some underlying…
We characterize the fluctuation properties of a polymer chain under external tension and the fluctuation-induced forces between two ring molecules threaded around the chain. The problem is relevant in the context of fluctuation-induced…
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…
Modeling of polymer chains has received a lot of attention in mathematics. In fact, probabilistic models that naturally arise in statistical mechanics have been widely studied by mathematicians for the very challenging and novel problems…
Most of crystalline materials exhibit a hysteresis on their deformation curve when mechanically loaded in alternating directions. This Bauschinger effect is the signature of mechanisms existing at the atomic scale and controlling the…
An expression is derived for the strain energy of a polymer chain under an arbitrary three-dimensional deformation with finite strains. For a Gaussian chain, this expression is reduced to the conventional Moony--Rivlin constitutive law,…
Using the pruned-enriched Rosenbluth Monte Carlo algorithm, the scattering functions of semiflexible macromolecules in dilute solution under good solvent conditions are estimated both in $d=2$ and $d=3$ dimensions, considering also the…
The vibrational response of polymer networks under load provides a sensitive probe of molecular deformation and a route to non-destructive diagnostics. Here we show that machine-learned force fields reproduce these spectroscopic…