Morphological variation in a collapsed single homopolymer chain

Abstract

We studied the thermodynamics in a single homopolymer chain using a multicanonical Monte Carlo simulation. A polymer chain that exhibits an elongated coil state in a good solvent, or at high temperatures, collapses into a condensed state, i.e., coil–globule transition. For flexible polymer chains, as the temperature decreases, the coil state changes into a liquidlike spherical globule, and this liquid state then changes into a solidlike spherical globule; these are similar to the transitions between gas and liquid and between liquid and solid, respectively. For stiff polymer chains, the coil state changes into a crystalline state without the appearance of an intermediate liquidlike state, to give a product with toroidal morphology. For chains intermediate between stiff and flexible, the coil state changes into a state in which toroid and rod shapes coexist, and this state changes into a single solidlike state in which only the rod shape is present. These calculational results correspond well to experimental findings for the products of the collapse of single long DNA chains.