Chemical Physics Letters, Vol.461, No.1-3, 42-46, 2008
Chain length dependence of folding transition in a semiflexible homo-polymer chain: Appearance of a core-shell structure
The folding transition of single, long semiflexible polymers was studied with special emphasis on the chain length effect using Monte Carlo simulations. While a relatively short chain (10-25 Kuhn segments) undergoes a large discrete transition between swollen coil and compact toroid conformations, a long chain (50 Kuhn segments) exhibits an intrachain segregated state between the disordered coil and ordered toroid. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.