Simulation study of cone-tethered polymers interacting with a surface

The study of DNA tethered to the tips of conical surfaces and other geometric surfaces, and how the entropic force is affected by these surfaces is a topic of recent theoretical and experimental research. In one experiment researchers attached a DNA strand to the cantilever tip of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and were able to determine the entropic force exerted on the polymer. In another study, a theoretical model was developed to predict the variation of the polymersurface interaction free energy with polymer length and vertex angle of the cantilever tip. In this study, we use Monte Carlo simulations to study the behaviour of a flexible hard-sphere chain tethered to a cone near a flat surface. The system was modeled this way after the experimental system of a DNA strand tethered to the tip of an AFM. The simulation results were used to test the accuracy of the theoretical model used to analyze the experimental results. The results were consistent with the theoretical predication for the effects of the variations in the polymer-surface interaction free energy with respect to polymer length.