IPM Calendar  School/Center
NANO SCIENCES




Weekly Seminar
Polymer translocation through nanopores in active media containing nonchiral and chiral active particles
Dr. Zahra Fazli

Date : Wednesday , December 21, 2022
           14:00 - 15:00    

Description
Polymer translocation through nanopores has been a major area of interest due to its significance in biological and technological applications, including viral genome injection, translocation of DNA through nano-channels, and DNA sequencing. The presence of active constituents in living cells and many biological processes brings polymer translocation an interesting problem in soft matter physics. In this talk, I will present our recent work on polymer translocation in active media where we study the translocation of a flexible polymer chain through a membrane pore under the influence of active forces and steric exclusion using Langevin dynamics simulations. The active forces on the polymer are imparted by nonchiral and chiral active particles that are introduced on one side or both sides of a rigid membrane positioned across the midline of a confining box. As a result of the competition between effective pulling and pushing forces from the active particles on the polymer chain, we find a transition between two rectified cis-to-trans and trans-to-cis translocation regimes. The transition is identified by a sharp peak in the translocation time of the polymer chain and varies depending on the system parameters including particle activity, area fraction, and chirality strength.