Related papers: Polymer brush-induced depletion interactions and c…
Using a combination of analytical theory, Monte Carlo simulations, and three dimensional self-consistent field calculations, we study the equilibrium properties and the switching behavior of adsorption-active polymer chains included in a…
Due to the complex characteristics of bottle-brush polymers, it became a challenge to develop an efficient algorithm for studying such macromolecules under various solvent conditions or some constraints in the space by using computer…
Designable media can control properties of nanocomposite materials by spatially organizing nanoparticles. Here we theoretically study particle organization by ultrathin polymer films of grafted chains (``brushes''). Polymer-soluble…
Bacterial microcompartments are large, roughly icosahedral shells that assemble around enzymes and reactants involved in certain metabolic pathways in bacteria. Motivated by microcompartment assembly, we use coarse-grained computational and…
We consider the Asakura-Oosawa model of hard sphere colloids and ideal polymers in contact with a porous matrix modeled by immobilized configurations of hard spheres. For this ternary mixture a fundamental measure density functional theory…
We investigate a set of design principles that link specific features of interparticle interactions to predictable structural and dynamic outcomes in two-dimensional self-assembly, a framework relevant to soft matter and biological…
Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…
We study the Brownian dynamics of flexible and semiflexible polymer chains densely grafted on a flat substrate, upon rapid quenching of the system when the quality of solvent becomes poor and chains attempt collapse into a globular state.…
Synthetic polymers have a distribution of chain lengths which can be characterized by dispersity, D. Macroscopic properties of polymers are influenced by chain mobility in the melt and manipulating D can significantly impact these…
Recent experiments by Y. Gambin et al. [PNAS 103, 2098 (2006)] have called into question the applicability of the Saffman-Delbruck diffusivity for proteins embedded in the lipid bilayers. We present a simple argument to account for this…
A physical scenario accounting for the existence of size-limited submicrometric domains in cell membranes is proposed. It is based on the numerical investigation of the counterpart, in lipidic membranes where proteins are diffusing, of the…
A brief review of modeling and simulation methods for a study of polymers at interfaces is provided. When studying truly multiscale problems as provided by realistic polymer systems, coarse graining is practically unavoidable. In this…
The early planetesimal growth proceeds through a sequence of sticking collisions of dust agglomerates. Very uncertain is still the relative velocity regime in which growth rather than destruction can take place. The outcome of a collision…
The entropic effects of anchored polymers on biomembranes are studied using simulations of a meshless membrane model combined with anchored linear polymer chains. The bending rigidity and spontaneous curvature are investigated for anchored…
The rheology of molecular brushes remains challenging to control due to the multiple length scales and relaxation processes involved and the lack of direct observation of molecular conformation during flow. We use molecular dynamics…
The structural phase behavior of polymer brushes, single-component linear homopolymers grafted onto a planar substrate, is studied using the molecular Monte Carlo method in 3 dimensions. When simulation parameters of the system are set in…
Biological membranes are dynamic surfaces whose shape and function are critically influenced by protein inclusions (PIs). While membrane deformations induced by PIs have been extensively studied in the small-deformation regime, a variety of…
Membrane-induced interactions have been predicted to be important for the organization of membrane proteins. Measurements of the interactions between two and three membrane deforming objects have revealed their non-additive nature. They are…
We analyze the shear response of grafted polymer chains in shear flow via coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Our simulations confirm that the shear response is dominated by the brush's outermost correlation volume, which depends…
When the local intrinsic stiffness of a polymer chain varies over a wide range, one can observe both a crossover from rigid-rod-like behavior to (almost) Gaussian random coils and a further crossover towards self-avoiding walks in good…