Density fluctuations dispersion relationship for a polymer confined to a nanotube

Appl Phys Lett. 2011 Jun 20;98(25):253704. doi: 10.1063/1.3602922. Epub 2011 Jun 21.

Abstract

DNA confined to rigid nanotubes shows density fluctuations around its stretched equilibrium conformation. We report an experimental investigation of the length-scale dependent dynamics of these density fluctuations. We find that for highly elongated molecules a Rouse description is consistent with observations at sufficiently large length scales. We further find that for strongly fluctuating molecules, or short length scales, such Rouse modes cannot be detected due to strong mixing of fluctuation modes.