Simulation Studies of Polymer Translocation through a Channel

Monte Carlo simulation studies of the translocation of homopolymers of length N driven through a channel have been performed. We find that the translocation time τ depends on temperature in a nontrivial way. For temperatures below some critical temperature θc, τ∼T-1.4, whereas for T>θc, τ increases with temperature. The low temperature results are in good agreement with experimental findings as is the dependence of τ on the driving field strength. The velocity of translocation displays the same characteristics as found in experiment but the N dependence of τ shows the linear relationship observed in experiment only for large values of N. A possible reason for this is suggested