(591b) Translocation of Chain Molecules through, Into, and Between Nanopores

We study the dynamics of polymer translocation through and into nanopores with two different coarse-grained modeling techniques. The self-consistent field theory (SCFT) represents the polymer chain as a random walk trajectory in an external field fulfilling the Edwards equation, which treats excluded volume effects in a mean field fashion; the process of translocation is described by the Fokker-Plank equation. The dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) represents the polymer chain as a sequence of soft repelling beads linked together by virtual springs in an explicit solvent; the chain movement is directly simulated with Newton equations, which account for random thermal motion, external field, inter-bead forces and friction with explicit solvent. The goal of our work is to understand the interplay of entropic (confinement size) and external field (adsorption potential) effects. Different model set-ups are considered: translocation through a hole in an impermeable membrane under purely diffusive and forced flow conditions, adsorption into a spherical pore from the bulk, and translocation between the pores of different sizes.