Related papers: Stretching necklaces
We present simulations on charged polymers in poor solvent. First we investigate in detail the dilute concentration range with and without imposed extension constraints. The resulting necklace polymer conformations are analyzed in detail.…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the behavior of a dilute solution of strongly charged polyelectrolytes in poor solvents, where we take counterions explicitly into account. We focus on the chain conformational properties under…
We study the properties of polyelectrolyte chains under different solvent conditions, using a variational technique. The free energy and the conformational properties of a polyelectrolyte chain are studied minimizing the free energy $F_N$,…
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by…
We consider the complexation of highly charged semiflexible polyelectrolytes with oppositely charged macroions. On the basis of scaling arguments we discuss how the resulting complexes depend on the persistence length of the…
We study theoretically using scaling arguments the behavior of polyelectrolyte gels in poor solvents. Following the classical picture of Katchalsky, our approach is based on single chain elasticity but it accounts for the recently proposed…
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…
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by…
A new quantitative theory for polyelectrolytes in salt free dilute solutions is developed. Depending on the electrostatic interaction strength, polyelectrolytes in solutions can undergo strong stretching (with polyelectrolyte dimension…
We present an analytical theory for heteropolymer deformation, as exemplified experimentally by stretching of single protein molecules. Using a mean-field replica theory, we determine phase diagrams for stress-induced unfolding of typical…
This paper discusses the elastic behavior of a single polyelectrolyte chain. A simple scaling analysis as in self avoiding walk chains are not possible, because three interplaying relevant length scales are involved, i.e., the Debye…
Nonlinear elastic responses of short and stiff polyelectrolytes are investigated by dynamic simulations on a single molecule level. When a polyelectrolyte condensate undergoes a mechanical unfolding, two types of force-extension curves,…
Stretching dynamics of polymers in microfluidics is of particular interest for polymer scientists. As a charged polymer, a polyelectrolyte can be deformed from its coiled equilibrium configuration to an extended chain by applying uniform or…
Starting with a model Hamiltonian, we study using the uniform expansion method conformational behavior of polyelectrolytes in the presence and absence of salt. The uniform expansion method yields all the important local length scales in the…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a highly charged flexible polyelectrolyte (PE) chain in a poor solvent for the case when the chain is in a collapsed state and the electrostatic interactions, characterized by the…
In this paper we analyze the behavior of hydrophobic polyelectrolytes. It has been proposed that this system adopts a pearl-necklace structure reminiscent of the Rayleigh instability of a charged droplet. Using a Poisson-Boltzmann approach,…
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…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a charged polymer in a good solvent in the regime where the chain is collapsed. We analyze the dependence of the gyration radius $R_g $ on the reduced Bjerrum length $\ell_B$ and find…
We investigate the equilibrium charge distribution along a single annealed polyelectrolyte chain under different conditions. The coupling between the conformation of the chain and the local charge distribution is described for various…
Properties of polyelectrolytes in tetravalent salt solutions are intensively investigated by a coarse-grained model. The concentration of salt and the size of tetravalent counterions are found playing a decisive role on chain properties. If…