Related papers: Structure of Polyelectrolytes in Poor Solvent
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…
Polyelectrolytes in poor solvents show a necklace structure where collapsed polymer pearls are linked to stretched strings. In the present paper the elasticity of such chains is studied in detail. Different deformation regimes are…
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 $F_N$,…
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…
We present a set of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of strongly charged, flexible polyelectrolyte chains under poor solvent conditions in a salt free solution. Structural properties of the chains and of the solutions are reported. By…
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…
Molecular dynamics simulation and recent theory are used to examine density correlations in semidilute solutions of highly charged, intrinsically flexible and hydrophilic polyelectrolytes in low salt. Quantitative comparison with no…
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…
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…
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 study the conformational properties of charged polymers in a solvent in the presence of structural obstacles correlated according to a power law $\sim x^{-a}$. We work within the continuous representation of a model of linear chain…
The conformation of polyelectrolytes in the solution state has long been of interest in polymer science. Herein we utilize all atom molecular dynamics simulations (MD) and small-angle x-ray scattering experiments (SAXS) to elucidate the…
We investigate the complexation of a highly charged sphere with a long flexible polyelectrolyte, \textit{both negatively charged} in salt free environment. Electroneutrality is insured by the presence of divalent counterions. Using…
Hydrophobic polyelectrolytes have been predicted to adopt an unique pearl-necklace conformation in aqueous solvents. We present in this Letter an attempt to characterise quantitatively this conformation with a focus on $D_p$, the pearl…
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 a theory for the equilibrium structure of polyelectrolyte solutions. The main element is a simple, new optimization scheme that allows theories such as the random phase approximation (RPA) to handle the harsh repulsive forces…
The combination of two techniques (Small Angle X-ray Scattering and Atomic Force Microscopy) has allowed us to measure in reciprocal and real space the correlation length $\xi$ of salt-free aqueous solutions of highly charged hydrophobic…
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 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…
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…