Matysiak Silvina, Montesi Alberto, Pasquali Matteo, Kolomeisky Anatoly B, Clementi Cecilia
Department of Chemistry, Computer and Information Technology Institute, 6100 Main street, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Mar 24;96(11):118103. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.118103. Epub 2006 Mar 22.
The dynamics of translocation of polymer molecules through nanopores is investigated via molecular dynamics. We find that an off-lattice minimalist model of the system is sufficient to reproduce quantitatively all the experimentally observed trends and scaling behavior. Specifically, simulations show (i) two translocation regimes depending on the ratio of pore and polymer length, (ii) two different regimes for the probability of translocation depending on applied voltage, (iii) an exponential dependence of translocation velocity upon applied voltage, and (iv) an exponential decrease of the translocation time with temperature. We also propose a simple theoretical explanation of each of the observed trends within a free energy landscape framework.
