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Surface-adsorption-induced polymer translocation through a nanopore: Effects of the adsorption strength and the
Xiaoyu Zhao1, Wancheng Yu1, Kaifu Luo1
1CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, and Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, P.R. China.
Abstract:
The surface corrugation plays an important role in single polymer diffusion on attractive surfaces. However, its effect on dynamics of surface adsorption-induced polymer translocation through a nanopore is not clear. Using three-dimensional Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the dynamics of a flexible polymer chain translocation through a nanopore induced by the selective adsorption of translocated segments onto the trans side of the membrane. The translocation probability Ptrans increases monotonically, while the mean translocation time τ has a minimum as a function of the adsorption strength ɛ, which are explained from the perspective of the effective driving force for the translocation. With the surface being smoother, τ as well as the scaling exponent α of τ with the chain length N decreases. Finally, we show that the distributions of the translocation time are non-Gaussian even for strong adsorption at a moderate surface corrugation. A nearly Gaussian distribution of the translocation time is observed only for the smoothest surface we studied.
