Self-Avoiding Flexible Polymers under Spherical Confinement

@article{citeulike:2735015, abstract = {Abstract: We compute the free energy of confinement for a flexible self-avoiding polymer inside a spherical cavity. Accurate numerical results allow us to arbitrate between three competing scaling predictions. For moderate confinement, the free energy exhibits a power-law dependence on cavity size that is different from what is observed for planar and cylindrical confinement. At high monomer concentrations, crossover to a different scaling regime is observed, consistent with the screening of the excluded-volume interactions. We demonstrate how our findings lead to a revised prediction for the escape time of a polymer from a spherical confinement.}, address = {Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801}, author = {Cacciuto, A. and Luijten, E. }, citeulike-article-id = {2735015}, doi = {10.1021/nl052351n}, journal = {Nano Lett.}, keywords = {confinement}, month = {May}, number = {5}, pages = {901--905}, posted-at = {2008-04-29 18:35:59}, priority = {2}, title = {Self-Avoiding Flexible Polymers under Spherical Confinement}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl052351n}, volume = {6}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2735015 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2735015 TI - Self-Avoiding Flexible Polymers under Spherical Confinement JF - Nano Lett. VL - 6 IS - 5 SP - 901 EP - 905 AD - Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801 N2 - Abstract: We compute the free energy of confinement for a flexible self-avoiding polymer inside a spherical cavity. Accurate numerical results allow us to arbitrate between three competing scaling predictions. For moderate confinement, the free energy exhibits a power-law dependence on cavity size that is different from what is observed for planar and cylindrical confinement. At high monomer concentrations, crossover to a different scaling regime is observed, consistent with the screening of the excluded-volume interactions. We demonstrate how our findings lead to a revised prediction for the escape time of a polymer from a spherical confinement. KW - confinement AU - Cacciuto, A AU - Luijten, E PY - 2006/05/10/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl052351n ER -