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Communication
Soft Matter, 2009, 5, 736 - 739, DOI: 10.1039/b814583k
The electrostatic origin of chiral patterns on nanofibers
Graziano Vernizzi, Kevin L. Kohlstedt and Monica Olvera de la Cruz
Several recent research works focus on nanofibers covered by molecules that self-assemble into chiral helices. While the formation of helical structures has been explained mostly on a case by case basis, the ubiquitous presence of chirality at the nanoscale suggests the existence of a unifying description. We present a model for computing the optimal arrangement of charged stripes over a cylindrical fiber, and show how helical structures can arise spontaneously from screened Coulomb interactions. We obtain the phase diagram and discuss some applications to nanoscale systems such as self-assembled peptide nanotubes, carbon nanotubes, and filamentous viruses.
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