Phase Transition to Bundles of Flexible Supramolecular Polymers

Abstract

We report Monte Carlo simulations of the self-assembly of supramolecular polymers based on a model of patchy particles. We find a first-order phase transition, characterized by hysteresis and nucleation, toward a solid bundle of polymers, of length much greater than the average gas phase length. We argue that the bundling transition is the supramolecular equivalent of the sublimation transition, which results from a weak chain-chain interaction. We provide a qualitative equation of state that gives physical insight beyond the specific values of the parameters used in our simulations.