Star Polymer Translocation into a Spheroidal Cavity

K Nagarajan and SB Chen, MACROMOLECULAR THEORY AND SIMULATIONS, 29, 2000032 (2020).

DOI: 10.1002/mats.202000032

Star polymer translocation into a spheroidal cavity has been studied using Langevin dynamics simulations. To isolate the effect of polymer architecture, the total number of monomers,N, is kept constant while the number of arms,f, is varied. For the special case of a spherical cavity, the mean translocation time, tau, exhibits nonmonotonic variation withffor large cavities, but decreases monotonically withffor sufficiently small cavities. The value of tau for a prolate cavity is generally similar to that for a spherical cavity of similar volume. In both cases, tau decreases monotonically withffor small cavities. In contrast, tau is significantly larger for an oblate cavity and exhibits nonmonotonic variation withf. If the attraction between the monomers and the cavity wall is sufficiently strong, the effect of cavity geometry largely vanishes and tau decreases monotonically withf, regardless of the cavity shape.

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