Stretching necklaces

Abstract

Polyelectrolytes in poor solvents show a necklace structure where collapsed polymer pearls are linked to stretched strings. In the present paper the elasticity of such chains is studied in detail. Different deformation regimes are addressed. The first is the continuous regime, where many pearls are present. A continuous force extension relation ship is calculated. The main contribution comes from the tension balance and the electrostatic repulsion of consecutive pearls. The main correction term stems from the finite size of the pearls, which monitors their surface energy. For a finite amount of pearls discontinuous stretching is predicted. Finally counterion effects are discussed qualitatively.

to appear in European Phys. Journal E (soft matter)

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Complexation of a polyelectrolyte with oppositely charged spherical macroions: Giant inversion of charge
• Structure of Polyelectrolytes in Poor Solvent
• Stretching of a polymer below the Theta point
• Electrostatic complexation of spheres and chains under elastic stress
• Stretching Polymers in Poor and Bad Solvents: Pullout Peaks and an Unraveling Transition
• Reversible stretching of homopolymers and random heteropolymers
• Mechanical response of random heteropolymers
• Self-consistent variational theory for globules
• Single Chain Force Spectroscopy: Sequence Dependence
• Extracting Structural Information of a Heteropolymer from Force-Extension Curves