We've got a polymer trapped between two plates by the end-monomers. This bridging chain spontaneously breaks up into 4 "beads" when no external electric filed is applied. The field gradually increases, and drags the chain towards the lower plate, forcing transitions to a three, then two, then one "bead" state. Only at the begining of the animation is the chain at equilibrium. Real world field strengths that induce these transitions are on the order of 5 Volts/ micron. Therefore, these transtions should be observable with an AFM, where a reasonable voltage is induced between the tip and the grafting surface.
There will be more detail added in a bit as to how these polymers were
handled in the calculations.
last updated: July 5, 2000