Related papers: The Effect of Explicit Polar Species on Conformati…
We study a homopolymer model of a protein chain, where each monomer carries a dipole moment. To mimic the geometry of the peptidic bond, these dipoles are constrained to be locally perpendicular to the chain. The tensorial character of the…
We adapt the Edwards-Muthukumar theoretical framework for a single polymer chain to investigate the interplay between proton binding and counterion condensation for poly-acids. We find that changes to pH enable non-monotonic transitions…
We study the phase behavior of diblock copolymers in presence of an external electric field. We employ self-consistent field theory and treat the relevant Maxwell equation as an additional self-consistent equation. Because we do not treat…
By means of a variational approach we study the conditions under which a polyelectrolyte in a bad solvent will undergo a transition from a rod-like structure to a ``necklace'' structure in which the chain collapses into a series of globules…
This paper discusses the elastic behavior of a very long crosslinked polyelectrolyte chain (Debye-H\"uckel chain), which is weakly charged. Therefore the response of the crosslinked chain (network) on an external constant force $f$ acting…
Electrostatic interactions play an important role in numerous self-assembly phenomena, including colloidal aggregation. Although colloids typically have a dielectric constant that differs from the surrounding solvent, the effective…
We investigate the kinetics of a polymer collapse due to the formation of irreversible crosslinks between its monomers. Using the contact probability $P(s)$ as a scale-dependent order parameter depending on the chemical distance $s$, our…
The persistence length of a single, strongly charged, stiff polyelectrolyte chain is investigated theoretically. Path integral formulation is used to obtain the effective electrostatic interaction between the monomers. We find significant…
We report results from a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation on the conformations of a long flexible polyelectrolyte complexed to a charged sphere, \textit{both negatively charged}, in the presence of neutralizing counterions in the strong…
Dilute solutions of strongly charged polymer electrolytes undergo, upon addition of multivaltent salt to the solutions, a phase transition from extended conformations to collapsed or bundled ones. Upon further addition of salt they…
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…
The quality of solvents of polymers is often described in terms of the Flory chi parameter typically assumed to depend only on the temperature, T. In certain polymer-solvent systems fitting the experimental data enforces the replacement of…
Based on extensive Monte Carlo simulations and analytical considerations we study the electrostatically driven adsorption of flexible polyelectrolyte chains onto charged Janus nanospheres. These net-neutral colloids are composed of two…
Interplay of Coulomb interaction energy, free ion entropy, and conformational elasticity is a fascinating aspect in polyelectrolytes (PEs). We develop a theory for complexation of two oppositely charged PEs, a process known to be the…
The influence of structural constraints on the relaxation dynamics of three polyurea networks with varying degree of crosslinking, has been studied by means of a thorough analysis of broadband dielectric spectroscopy measurements. Two…
We investigate the reliability of simulations of polyelectrolyte systems in aqueous environments, simulations that are performed using an efficient multi scale coarse grained polarizable pseudo-particle particle approach, denoted as pppl,…
We consider a statistical mechanical model of a generic flexible polyelectrolyte, comprised of identically charged monomers with long range electrostatic interactions, and short-range interactions quantified by a disorder field along the…
Contrary to expectations based on Harris' criterion, chain disorder with frustration can modify the universality class of scaling at the theta transition of heteropolymers. This is shown for a model with random two-body potentials in 2D on…
We have discovered unusual behavior of polymer coils in a binary solvent (nitroethane+isooctane) near the critical temperature of demixing. The exceptionally close refractive indices of the solvent components make the critical opalescence…
The dielectric nature of polar liquids underpins much of their ability to act as useful solvents, but its description is complicated by the long-ranged nature of dipolar interactions. This is particularly pronounced under the periodic…