中国物理B ›› 2020, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (10): 108201-.doi: 10.1088/1674-1056/abaedc

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Chao Wang(王超)1,†(), Ying-Cai Chen(陈英才)1, Shuang Zhang(张爽)2, Hang-Kai Qi(齐航凯)3, Meng-Bo Luo(罗孟波)3,‡()   

  • 收稿日期:2020-07-06 修回日期:2020-07-29 接受日期:2020-08-13 出版日期:2020-10-05 发布日期:2020-10-05
  • 通讯作者: Chao Wang(王超), Meng-Bo Luo(罗孟波)

Distribution of a polymer chain between two interconnected spherical cavities

Chao Wang(王超)1,†, Ying-Cai Chen(陈英才)1, Shuang Zhang(张爽)2, Hang-Kai Qi(齐航凯)3, and Meng-Bo Luo(罗孟波)3,‡   

  1. 1 Department of Physics, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China
    2 College of Science, Beibu Gulf University, Qinzhou 535011, China
    3 Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
  • Received:2020-07-06 Revised:2020-07-29 Accepted:2020-08-13 Online:2020-10-05 Published:2020-10-05
  • Contact: Corresponding author. E-mail: chaowang0606@126.com Corresponding author. E-mail: luomengbo@zju.edu.cn
  • About author:
    †Corresponding author. E-mail: chaowang0606@126.com
    ‡Corresponding author. E-mail: luomengbo@zju.edu.cn
    * Project supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (Grant No. LY20A040004) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11604232, 11674277, 11704210, and 11974305).

Abstract:

The equilibrium distribution of a polymer chain between two interconnected spherical cavities (a small one with radius Rs and a large one with radius Rl) is studied by using Monte Carlo simulation. A conformational transition from a double-cavity-occupation (DCO) state to a single-cavity-occupation (SCO) state is observed. The dependence of the critical radius of the small cavity (RsC) where the transition occurs on Rl and the polymer length N can be described by $ {R}_{{\rm{sC}}}\propto {N}^{1/3}{R}_{{\rm{l}}}^{1-1/3\nu } $ with ν being the Flory exponent, and meanwhile the equilibrium number (ms) of monomers in the small cavity for the DCO phase can be expressed as ms = N/((Rl/Rs)3 + 1), which can be quantitatively understood by using the blob picture. Moreover, in the SCO phase, the polymer is found to prefer staying in the large cavity.

Key words: polymer, phase transition, free energy, blob theory

中图分类号:  (Copolymers, phase transitions, structure)

  • 82.35.Jk
82.35.Lr (Physical properties of polymers) 82.20.Wt (Computational modeling; simulation)