Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Backfolding Of Wormlike Chains Confined In Nanochannels, Abhiram Muralidhar, Douglas R. Tree, Kevin D. Dorfman
Backfolding Of Wormlike Chains Confined In Nanochannels, Abhiram Muralidhar, Douglas R. Tree, Kevin D. Dorfman
Faculty Publications
Using pruned-enriched Rosenbluth method (PERM) simulations of a discrete wormlike chain model, we provide compelling evidence in support of Odijk’s prediction of two distinct Odijk regimes for a long wormlike chain confined in a nanochannel. In both cases, the chain of persistence length lp is renormalized into a series of deflection segments of characteristic length D2/3lp1/3, where D is the channel size. In the first (classic) Odijk regime, these deflection segments are linearly ordered. In the second Odijk regime, thin, long wormlike chains can backfold at a length scale quantified by the global persistence length. We …
The Odijk Regime In Slits, Douglas R. Tree, Wesley F. Reinhart, Kevin D. Dorfman
The Odijk Regime In Slits, Douglas R. Tree, Wesley F. Reinhart, Kevin D. Dorfman
Faculty Publications
De Gennes’ blob theory has been remarkably successful at describing weakly confined polymers in both slits and channels, and comparable results surround Odijk’s theory of deflection segments for strongly confined wormlike polymers in nanochannels. However, given the success of Odijk’s theory in channels, it is remarkable that there is no comprehensive theory for the simple case of a wormlike polymer strongly confined between two parallel plates. We propose such a theory by drawing inspiration from the existing literature on ideal wormlike chains in slits and Daoud and de Gennes’ idea of mapping a slit-confined chain to a two-dimensional chain. We …