title: The formation and structure of Olympic gels.
abstract: Different methods for creating Olympic gels are analyzed using computer simulations. First ideal reference samples are obtained from freely interpenetrating semi-dilute solutions and melts of cyclic polymers. The distribution of pairwise concatenations per cyclic molecule is given by a Poisson-distribution and can be used to describe the elastic structure of the gels. Several batches of linear chains decorated with different selectively binding groups at their ends are mixed in the "DNA Origami" technique and network formation is realized. While the formation of cyclic molecules follows mean field predictions below overlap of the precursor molecules, an enhanced ring formation above overlap is found that is not explained by mean field arguments. The "progressive construction" method allows to create Olympic gels with a single reaction step from a concentrated mixture of large compressed rings with a low weight fraction of short chains that are below overlap concentration. This method, however, is limited by the difficulty to obtain a sufficiently high degree of polymerization of the large rings.
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Hohe Straße 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Hohe Straße 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, Hohe Straße 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: J-U
authors.initials: JU
authors.lastname: Sommer
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D005782:Gels / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D015394:Molecular Structure; D011108:Polymers / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005782:Gels; D011108:Polymers; D004247:DNA