Increasing DNA Correlation Length by Nanoscale Confinement

Monday, October 17, 2011: 2:25 PM
102 B (Minneapolis Convention Center)
Yeng-Long Chen1, Pokeng Lin2 and Chiafu Chou2, (1)Institute of Physics and Research Center for Applied Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, (2)Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

We investigate the effect of sub-persistence length confinement on the correlation length of DNA molecules. In strong
slit confinement, the segmental correlation length of DNA molecules have two components -- in the confined
and unconfined dimensions. In the confined dimension, the segmental correlation length is controlled by the slit height. In the
unconfined dimension, the segmental correlation length increases as the slit height decreases. We characterize this effect,
and generalize how this affects the entropic elasticity of confined DNA molecules. In addition, we discuss the structure of
dense strongly confined semi-flexible polymers and effects on thermodynamic properties.

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See more of this Session: Thermodynamics At the Nanoscale II
See more of this Group/Topical: Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals