Anisotropic effective interactions and stack formation in mixtures of semiflexible ring polymers

Autor(en)

Peter Poier, Petra Bacova, Angel J. Moreno, Christos N. Likos, Ronald Blaak

Abstrakt

By means of extensive computer simulations, we investigate the formation of columnar structures ( stacks) in concentrated solutions of semiflexible ring polymers. To characterize the stacks we employ an algorithm that identifies tube-like structures in the simulation cell. Stacks are found both in the real system and in the fluid of soft disks interacting through the effective anisotropic pair potential derived for the rings [P. Poier et al., Macromolecules, 2015, 48, 4983-4997]. Furthermore, we investigate binary mixtures of cluster-forming and non-cluster-forming rings. We find that monodispersity is not a requirement for stack formation. The latter is found for a broad range of mixture compositions, though the columns in the mixtures exhibit important differences to those observed in the monodisperse case. We extend the anisotropic effective model to mixtures. We show that it correctly predicts stack formation and constitutes a significant improvement with respect to the usual isotropic effective description based only on macromolecular centers-of-mass.

Organisation(en)

Computergestützte Physik und Physik der Weichen Materie

Externe Organisation(en)

University of the Basque Country, Foundation for Research and Technology—Hellas (FORTH), Donostia International Physics Centre (DIPC)

Journal

Soft Matter

Band

12

Seiten

4805-4820

Anzahl der Seiten

16

ISSN

1744-683X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1039/c6sm00430j

Publikationsdatum

2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103023 Polymerphysik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Condensed Matter Physics, Allgemeine Chemie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/4158b24e-e337-47c6-8906-ebbb10760d9f