The persistence length of macromolecules is one of their basiccharacteristics, describing their intrinsic local stiffness. However, it isdifficult to extract this length from physical properties of the polymers,different recipes may give answers that disagree with each other. Monte Carlosimulations are used to elucidate this problem, giving a comparative discussionof two lattice models, the self-avoiding walk model extended by a bond bendingenergy, and bottle-brush polymers described by the bond fluctuation model. Theconditions are discussed under which a description of such macromolecules byKratky-Porod worm-like chains holds, and the question to what extent thepersistence length depends on external conditions (such as solvent quality) isconsidered. The scattering function of semiflexible polymers is discussed indetail, a comparison to various analytic treatments is given, and an outlook toexperimental work is presented.
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