Related papers: Capillary-driven thinning of DNA solutions
The longitudinal response of single semiflexible polymers to sudden changes in externally applied forces is known to be controlled by the propagation and relaxation of backbone tension. Under many experimental circumstances, realized, e.g.,…
We derive scaling relations for the extension statistics and the confinement free energy for a semi-flexible polymer confined to a channel with a rectangular cross-section. Our motivation are recent numerical results [Gupta {\em et al.},…
Physical aging in polymers is a fundamental yet poorly understood phenomenon, as diverse macromolecular systems exhibit remarkably similar slow dynamics. Through molecular dynamics simulations of physically crosslinked networks composed of…
Semiflexible polymers are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems, where their intermediate rigidity gives rise to rich structural and dynamical behavior. Confinement plays a central role in these behaviors, as spatial restrictions can…
Semi-flexible polyelectrolytes are a group of biopolymers with a wide range of applications from drag reducing agents in turbulent flows to thickening agents in food and cosmetics. In this study, we investigate the rheology of aqueous…
Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…
We calculate the distribution function of the end--to--end distance of a semiflexible polymer with large bending rigidity. This quantity is directly observable in experiments on single semiflexible polymers (e.g., DNA, actin) and relevant…
The thinning of liquid bridges under capillary stress occurs in widespread processes like jetting, dripping, and spraying, and creates a strong extensional flow capable of stretching dissolved polymers. If the elastic stress exceeds the…
We theoretically investigate the kinetics of the folding transition of a single semiflexible polymer. In the folding transition, the growth rate decrease with an increase in the number of monomers in a collapsed domain, suggesting that the…
Chemically-responsive polymers are macromolecules that respond to local variations of the chemical composition of the solution by changing their conformation, with notable examples including polyelectrolytes, proteins and DNA. The polymer…
We propose that semiflexible polymers in poor solvent collapse in two stages. The first stage is the well known formation of a dense toroidal aggregate. However, if the solvent is sufficiently poor, the condensate will undergo a second…
The dynamic structure factor of semiflexible polymers in solution is derived from the wormlike chain model. Special attention is paid to the rigid constraint of an inextensible contour and to the hydrodynamic interactions. For the cases of…
We show experimentally that a cheap glass microcapillary can accumulate {\lambda}-phage DNA at its tip and deliver the DNA into the capillary using a combination of electro-osmotic flow, pressure-driven flow, and electrophoresis. We develop…
The nonlinear rheological properties of dense suspensions are discussed within simplified models, suggested by a recent first principles approach to the model of Brownian particles in a constant-velocity-gradient solvent flow. Shear…
The biological function of membranes is closely related to their softness, which is often studied through the membranes' thermally-driven fluctuations. The analysis commonly assumes that the relaxation rate of a pure bending deformation is…
The importance of nonlinearities in material constitutive relations has long been appreciated in the continuum mechanics of macroscopic rods. Although the moment (torque) response to bending is almost universally linear for small deflection…
The rheological properties of tangentially propelled flexible polymers under linear shear flow are studied by computer simulations and are compared with analytical calculations. We find a significant impact of the coupled nonequilibrium…
Capillary imbibition underpins many processes of fundamental and applied relevance in fluid mechanics. A limitation to the flow is the coupling to the confining solid, which induces friction forces. Our work proposes a general theoretical…
We study the adsorption of semiflexible polymers such as polyelectrolytes or DNA on planar and curved substrates, e.g., spheres or washboard substrates via short-range potentials using extensive Monte-Carlo simulations, scaling arguments,…
The properties of semidilute polymer solutions are investigated at equilibrium and under shear flow by mesoscale simulations, which combine molecular dynamics simulations and the multiparticle collision dynamics approach. In semidilute…