2003/10/31 by Mark L. Henle, Christian D. Santangelo, Deena M. Patel +2 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/epl/i2003-10205-1
published as Europhys. Lett. 66, 284 (2004) · 7 pages, 1 figure; added references, minor revisions
openalex publication_date 2004/04/01 · arxiv created 2004/04/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Realistic charged macromolecules are characterized by discrete (rather than homogeneous) charge distributions. We investigate the effects of surface charge discretization on the counterion distribution at the level of mean-field theory using a two-state model. Both planar and cylindrical geometries are considered; for the latter case, we compare our results to numerical solutions of the full Poisson-Boltzmann equation. We find that the discretization of the surface charge can cause enhanced localization of the counterions near the surface; for charged cylinders, counterion condensation can exceed Oosawa-Manning condensation.