Raft Instability of Biopolymer Gels

Preprint

13 September 2002

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.cond-mat/0209332

Abstract

Following recent X-ray diffraction experiments by Wong, Li, and Safinya on biopolymer gels, we apply Onsager excluded volume theory to a nematic mixture of rigid rods and strong ``$\pi/2$'' cross-linkers obtaining a long-ranged, highly anisotropic depletion attraction between the linkers. This attraction leads to breakdown of the percolation theory for this class of gels, to breakdown of Onsager's second-order virial method, and to formation of heterogeneities in the form of raft-like ribbons.

Keywords

DIFFRACTION EXPERIMENTS
RAFT INSTABILITY
BIOPOLYMER GELS
ATTRACTION
BREAKDOWN
ONSAGER'S
RECENT X
GELS

All Related Versions

Version 1, 2002-09-13, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 87 (15), 158101.

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