Abstract
By the so-called wormlike chain (WLC) model in polymer physics envisioning an isotropic rod that is continuously flexible, the force-extension relations of semi-flexible polymer chains strongly constrained by various confinements are theoretically investigated, including a slab-like confinement where the polymer chains are sandwiched between two parallel impenetrable walls, and a capped nanochannel confinement with a circular or rectangular cross-section where the chains are bounded in three directions. The Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations based on the generalized bead-rod (GBR) model are performed to verify the theoretical predictions.
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Project supported the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11032006, 11072094, and 11121202), the Ph.D. Program Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 20100211110022), the National Key Project of Magneto-Constrained Fusion Energy Development Program of China (No. 2013GB110002), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. lzujbky-2013-1)
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Wang, Jz., Li, Rh. Stretching strongly confined semiflexible polymer chain. Appl. Math. Mech.-Engl. Ed. 35, 1233–1238 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-014-1862-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-014-1862-9