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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 101 » Issue 13
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 138101 (2008) [4 pages]

Compression and Stretching of a Self-Avoiding Chain in Cylindrical Nanopores

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Suckjoon Jun
FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, 7 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

D. Thirumalai
Biophysics Program, IPST and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

Bae-Yeun Ha
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada

Received 26 May 2008; published 22 September 2008

Force-induced deformations of a self-avoiding chain confined inside a cylindrical cavity, with diameter D, are probed using molecular dynamics simulations, scaling analysis, and analytical calculations. We obtain and confirm a simple scaling relation -fD∼R-9/4 in the strong-compression regime, while for weak deformations, we find fD=-A(R/R0)+B(R/R0)-2, where A and B are constants, f the external force, and R the chain extension (with R0 its unperturbed value). For a strong stretch, we present a universal, analytical force-extension relation. Our results can be used to analyze the behavior of biomolecules in confinement.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.138101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.138101
PACS:
87.15.−v, 82.35.Lr, 82.37.Rs
 
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