NANOSYSTEMS: PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, MATHEMATICS, 2013, 4 (2), P. 225–235
STEPWISE CONFORMATION TRANSITIONS FOR A SEMI-STIFF RING POLYMER CONFINED IN A CONICAL TRAP INDUCED BY THE INCREASING EXTERNAL FIELD OR BY CONE’S OPENING ANGLE VARIATION
A. Siretskiy – Dept. of Informational Technology, SE-751 05, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; alexey.siretskiy@it.uu.se
C. Elvingson – Dept. of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry P.O. Box 523, SE-751 20, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; christer.elvingson@kemi.uu.se
P. Vorontsov-Velyaminov – Dept. of Molecular Biophysical, Physical Faculty, 198504, Saint Petersburg University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia; voron.wgroup@gmail.com
In this paper a stepwise compaction process of a ring semi-stiff polymer chain placed in a 3d conical nano-cavity and being under the action of the increasing external field is studied. Compaction from a circlelike shape to several toroidal-like loops for a three-dimensional system was observed. The thermodynamic stability of these toroidal-like structures was investigated by observing a hysteresis of the compactionextension curves. This study extends our previous work [1] with investigation of the effect of the cone opening angle variation on the distinct shape transitions.
Keywords: semi-stiff ring polymers, Monte Carlo, compact structures, shape transitions, confinement, nanocone.
PACS 05.10.Ln 05.20.Gg 87.15.A- 64.60.De