Ordered aggregation of semiflexible ring-linear blends in ellipsoidal confinement

XL Zhou and JX Wu and LX Zhang, POLYMER, 197, 122494 (2020).

DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2020.122494

Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the conformations of semiflexible ring-linear blends in ellipsoidal confinement. Ordered structures of semiflexible ring polymers (SRPs) in ring-linear blends rely strongly on the number density of blends (rho), the chain length (N-linear) and the bending energy (K-b,K-linear) of semiflexible linear polymers, as well as the curvature of confinement. For a low number density rho, SRPs are immersed randomly in the matrix of linear polymers in ellipsoid confinement. However, for a high number density rho, a complete separation of SRPs from flexible linear polymers occurs, and a highly ordered aggregation structure of SRPs at the equatorial plane is formed in the mixture of semiflexible linear polymers with large K-b,K-linear. These explicit ordered aggregations of SRPs in ellipsoidal confinement are induced by a delicate competition between the entropic excluded volume (depletion) effects and bending contributions. This investigation can help us understand the complicated conformations of ring-linear blends in ellipsoidal confinement.

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