Related papers: Can Polymer Coils be modeled as "Soft Colloids"?
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
Using a theoretical model we show that ideal ring polymers are stronger depletants than ideal linear polymers of equal radii of gyration, but not of equal hydrodynamic radii. The difference in the depletion-induced force profile is largely…
Entangled polymers are an important class of materials for their toughness, processability, and functionalizability. However, physically detailed modeling of highly entangled polymers can prove challenging, especially as one considers…
Mean-field techniques provide a rather accurate description of single-chain conformations in spatially inhomogeneous polymer systems containing interfaces or surfaces. Intermolecular correlations, however, are not described by the…
Polymeric materials that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with potential applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. In contrast…
Evaluation of the angular distribution function of particles scattered in an amorphous medium is improved by deforming the integration path in the Fourier integral representation into the complex plane. That allows us to present the…
We perform a detailed analysis of solutions of the inverse problem applied to experimentally measured two-dimensional radial distribution functions for highly charged latex dispersions. The experiments are carried out at high colloidal…
The effective interaction between charged colloidal particles confined between two planar like-charged walls is investigated using computer simulations of the primitive model describing asymmetric electrolytes. In detail, we calculate the…
Whereas it is experimentally known that the inclusion of nanoparticles in hydrogels can lead to a mechanical reinforcement, a detailed molecular understanding of the adhesion mechanism is still lacking. Here we use coarse-grained molecular…
The surface tension, the adsorption, and the depletion thickness of polymers close to a single nonadsorbing colloidal sphere are computed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. We consider polymers under good-solvent conditions and in the…
We study the translocation of a semiflexible polymer through a conical channel with attractive surface interactions and a driving force which varies spatially inside the channel. Using the results of the translocation dynamics of a flexible…
Colloidal particles or nanoparticles, with equal affinity for two fluids, are known to adsorb irreversibly to the fluid-fluid interface. We present large-scale computer simulations of the demixing of a binary solvent containing such…
We explore interactions between equally charged surfaces, in the presence of simple salt and either neutral or monovalently charged polyampholytes. We consider the possibility of using these charged polymers as crude models of ion clusters.…
We investigate, within a local density functional theory formalism, the interactions between like-charged polyions immersed in a confined electrolyte. We obtain a simple condition for a repulsive effective pair potential, that can be…
We investigate the folding and forced-unbinding transitions of adsorbed semiflexible polymer chains using theory and simulations. These processes describe biologically relevant phenomena that include adhesive interactions between proteins…
The formation of chain-folded structures from the melt is observed in molecular dynamics simulations resembling the lamellae of polymer crystals. Crystallization and subsequent melting temperatures are related linearly to the inverse…
In this work we present scattering functions of conjugates consisting of a colloid particle and a self-avoiding polymer chain. This model is directly derived from the two point correlation function with the inclusion of excluded volume…
We draw an analogy between droplet formation in dilute particle and polymer systems. Our arguments are based on finite-size scaling results from studies of a two-dimensional lattice gas to three-dimensional bead-spring polymers. To set the…
A simple model of a polymer with long rigid segments which interact via excluded volume repulsions and short ranged attractions is proposed. The coil-globule transition of this model polymer is strongly first order, the globule is…
A theory is presented which allows us to accurately calculate the density profile of monovalent and multivalent counterions in suspensions of polarizable colloids or nano-particles. In the case of monovalent ions, we derive a weak-coupling…