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Dynamics of individual flexible polymers in a shear flow

Nature volume 399, pages 564–566 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Polymer dynamics are of central importance in materials science, mechanical engineering, biology and medicine1,2. The dynamics of macromolecular solutions and melts in shear flow are typically studied using bulk experimental methods such as light and neutron scattering and birefringence3,4. But the effect of shear on the conformation and dynamics of individual polymers is stillnot well understood5,6,7. Here we describe observations of the real-time dynamics of individual, flexible polymers (fluorescently labelled DNA molecules8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15) under a shear flow. The sheared polymers exhibit many types of extended conformation with an overall orientation ranging from parallel to perpendicular with respect to the flow direction. For shear rates much smaller than the inverse of the relaxation time of the molecule, the relative populations of these two main types of conformation are controlled by the rate of the shear flow. These results question the adequacy of assumptions made in standard models of polymer dynamics5,6.

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Figure 1: Shear-flow experimental set-up and sketch of an individual DNA molecule.
Figure 2: The different conformations of DNA under shear.
Figure 3: Dynamic motion of DNA molecules experiencing well defined shear strains.
Figure 4: Quantitative characterization of the conformation of individual DNA molecules under shear.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Ferro, L. Archer, J. Harden, D. Lavan, and J. van Zanten for discussions. This work was supported by NASA (D.W.), ACS-PRF (D.W.), NSF (D.W.), the Whitaker Foundation (D.W.), Merck, Inc. (D.W.) ARO (G.B.), and IMRE (G.B.)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering,

    Philip LeDuc & Gang Bao

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering,

    Charbel Haber & Denis Wirtz

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 21218, Maryland, USA

    Denis Wirtz

Authors
  1. Philip LeDuc
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  2. Charbel Haber
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  3. Gang Bao
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  4. Denis Wirtz
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Correspondence to Denis Wirtz.

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LeDuc, P., Haber, C., Bao, G. et al. Dynamics of individual flexible polymers in a shear flow. Nature 399, 564–566 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/21148

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