Poor-solvent polyelectrolytes

Abstract

Using extensive molecular dynamics simulations we study the behaviour of polyelectrolytes (PEs) in poor solvents, explicitly taking the counterions into account. The resulting pearl-necklace structures are subject to strong conformational fluctuations. These lead to small signatures in the form factor and the force–extension relation, which is a severe obstacle to experimental observations. In addition, we study how the necklace collapses as a function of the Bjerrum length. Finally, we demonstrate that the position of the first peak in the inter-chain structure factor varies with the monomer density as ≈ ρm0.35 for all densities, which shows a pertinent different behaviour as compared to that of PE solutions in good solvent.