Abstract
The present article describes the new finding that various kinds of characteristic nanostructures are created spontaneously f r om the collapsing transition in single polymer chains. From theoretical study with Monte-Carlo simulation on single chains, it is predicted that toroid, rod, and spherical structures are generated as the most stable conformations under thermal equilibrium, depending on the stiffness, temperature (or effective interaction between the segments in a chain), and chain length. From the actual experiments on long DNA chains with the order of several tens of micrometers, the formation of these nonostructures have been confirmed, together with the formation of intrachain segregated structure. It is also indicated that kinetic effect, such as nucleation-growth and spinodal decomposition, plays an important role in the determination of the final structures with the collapsing transition.
Published Version
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