The thermodynamics of the bicomponent melts of linear chains A and unknotted unentangled closed chains B (trivial rings) is considered within the framework of i he usual Flory approach. It is shown that such melts exhibit a compatibility enhancement in comparison with the corresponding melts of linear chains. The reason for such effect is due to the topological entropy gain of mixing of Aand B-...

We study how the orientational correlations of DNA confined to nanochannels depend on the channel diameter D by means of Monte Carlo simulations and a mean-field theory. This theory describes DNA conformations in the experimentally relevant regime where the Flory-de Gennes theory does not apply. We show how local correlations determine the dependence of the end-to-end distance of the DNA molecu...

Self-assembly is the mechanism that controls the formation of well-defined structures from disordered pre-existing parts. Despite the importance of self-assembly as a manufacturing method and the increasingly large number of experimental realizations of complex self-assembled nano-aggregates, theoretical predictions are lagging behind. Here, we show that for a nontrivial self-assembly phenomeno...

A generalized self-consistent field approach for polymer networks with a fixed topology is developed. It is shown that the theory reproduces the localization of cross-links, which is characteristic for gels. The theory is then used to study the order-disorder transition in regular networks of end-linked diblock copolymers. Compared to diblock copolymer melts, the transition is shifted towards l...

We study the tubular phase of self-avoiding anisotropic membranes. We discuss the renormalizability of the model Hamiltonian describing this phase and derive from a renor-malization group equation some general scaling relations for the exponents of the model. We show how particular choices of renormalization factors reproduce the Gaussian result, the Flory theory and the Gaussian Variational tr...

We report on recent progress in understanding the tubular phase of self-avoiding anisotropic membranes. After an introduction to the problem, we sketch the renormalization group arguments and symmetry considerations that lead us to the most plausible fixed point structure of the model. We then employ an ε-expansion about the upper critical dimension to extrapolate to the physical interesting 3-...

Combining the FH entropy of mixing and the standard RS enthalpy of mixing yields the FH solution theory for polymers: ∆G N = Bφ1φ2 + RT (φ1 lnφ1 + φ2 N lnφ2). As written above, this equation is comparable to the free energy of mixing from the Regular Solution Model. Notice that the expressions differ in two ways: first, FH is cast in volume fractions rather than mole fractions, and second, FH i...

We re-explore the kinetics of spinodal decomposition in off-critical polymer blends through numerical simulations of the Cahn-Hilliard equation with the Flory-Huggins-De Gennes free energy functional. Even in the absence of thermal noise, the solution of the discretized equation of motion shows coarsening in the late stages of spinodal decomposition without evidence of pinning, regardless of th...