Self-organization and the formation of helicoidal polymer structures

The self-organization of three-dimensional anharmonic chains of atoms with strong interactions between nearest-neighbor atoms and various types of weak interactions between non-nearest neighbors is investigated by the method of molecular dynamics. It is observed that in all cases short helical segments form initially, causing the molecule either to evolve into a stable helicoidal structure or to collapse into a globule. It is shown that the stability of the helicoidal structure is caused by correlations among the weak interactions. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.