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Polymer Confinement And Translocation, Chiu Tai Andrew Wong

Open Access Dissertations

Single polymer passage through geometrically confined regions is ubiquitous in biology. Recent technological advances have made the direct study of its dynamics possible. We studied the capture of DNA molecules by the electroosmotic flow of a nanopore induced by its surface charge under an applied electric field. We showed theoretically that the DNA molecules underwent coil-stretch transitions at a critical radius around the nanopore and the transition assisted the polymer passage through the pore. To understand how a polymer worms through a narrow channel, we investigated the translocation dynamics of a Gaussian chain between two compartments connected with a cylindrical …