Counterion distribution and many-body interaction in charged dendrimer solutions

Abstract

Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the structural formation, counterion distribution and effective interaction on charged dendrimers in an aqueous solution. In particular, the many-body effects in triplet systems are clarified. The conformation of a dendrimer molecule depends on the size of counterions, and the counterion distribution can be scaled by the gyration radius of a dendrimer molecule. Two-body and three-body interactions have been numerically investigated, and the results indicate both similarities and differences between dendrimer solutions and other soft colloidal systems, such as star polymer solutions.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Supercomputer Center, Institute of Solid State Physics at the University of Tokyo for the use of their facilities. This work was supported in part by a grant-in-aid for scientific research from the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The authors thank A. Jusufi for useful discussions.