Issue |
EPL
Volume 94, Number 4, May 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 43001 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/94/43001 | |
Published online | 12 May 2011 |
Tennis-ball state of a self-avoiding wormlike polymer on a spherical surface
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1
Received:
9
March
2011
Accepted:
8
April
2011
Using Monte Carlo simulations of a wormlike chain that contains the excluded-volume interaction, we demonstrate that a directionally anisotropic state exists at high surface coverage, when the chain is confined to a spherical surface. The isotropic-anisotropic transition has first-order characteristics and can be compared with the isotropic-nematic transition observed in lyotropic polymer systems, both driven by the excluded-volume interaction. Unlike a nematic state, the anisotropic state observed here displays the so-called tennis-ball conformation, coupling the polymer-segment orientation preference with positional order.
PACS: 36.20.Ey – Conformation (statistics and dynamics) / 68.47.Pe – Langmuir-Blodgett films on solids; polymers on surfaces; biological molecules on surfaces / 87.15.ak – Monte Carlo simulations
© EPLA, 2011
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