Emergence of multiple tori structures in a single polyelectrolyte chain.
We investigated the collapsed structure of a weakly charged wormlike chain under a moderate concentration of 1:1 electrolyte solution. By assuming a torus as a grand state, we found that the size of a torus is determined by the balance between surface energy and electrostatic energy, which leads to a finite torus thickness almost independent of the chain contour length. Owing to this unique characteristic, a long charged wormlike chain forms multiple tori structure as a collapsed product, which is never seen with a neutral wormlike chain. These features were confirmed by a Monte Carlo simulation.
Sakaue
Takahiro
T
Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University and CREST, Kyoto 606-8504, Japan. sakaue@chem.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp