How to control a polymer conformation using active forces and sequence design

A Buglakov and A Chertovich, JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS, 163, 164903 (2025).

DOI: 10.1063/5.0297846

Active monomer units capable of absorbing external energy and converting it into directed translational motion drive polymers to a peculiar nonequilibrium self-ordering even in the absence of other specific interactions. Such polymers are of interest both for understanding the functioning of molecular biological systems and for creating new synthetic responsive materials. In this paper, we study the conformational behavior of active copolymers containing both active and passive repeating units with random and regular distributions along the chain. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we have shown that even a small fraction of active beads is sufficient for the collapse of the polymer. The influence of the active unit fraction and the length of the repeating block on the conformational characteristics of the copolymers is determined. We have shown that the presented phenomena are qualitatively independent of the chosen activity model and are likely to be universal.

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