1. Department of Applied Physics, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China;
2. Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China;
3. School of Physics and Electronic Sciences, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410004, China;
4. Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China;
5. School of Physics and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450002, China
Molecular dynamics method is used to study the conformation behavior of a semi-flexible polymer chain confined in a cylinder channel. A novel helix-like structure is found to form during the simulation. Moreover, the detailed characteristic parameters and formation probability of these helix-like structures under moderate conditions are investigated. We find that the structure is not a perfect helix, but a bundle of elliptical turns. In addition, we conduct a statistical analysis for the chain monomer distribution along the radial direction. This research contributes to our understanding of the microscopic conformation of polymer chains in confined environments filled with a solvent.
(Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics)
Fund:
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11504033 and 11404290) and the General Research Fund of Hong Kong Research Council of China (Grant No. 15301014).
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