Determining Gyration Tensor of Orienting Macromolecules through Their Scattering Signature

Journal Article · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b01418· OSTI ID:1531253

Huang, Guan -Rong ^[1]; Wang, Yangyang  ^[2]; Do, Changwoo  ^[2]; Porcar, Lionel ^[3]; Shinohara, Yuya  ^[2]; Egami, Takeshi ^[4]; Chen, Wei -Ren  ^[2]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Hsinchu (Taiwan)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
3. Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble cedex (France)
4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)

A method is presented for quantitatively evaluating the shape and size of deformed particles in dispersion from their two-dimensional anisotropic spectra by small-angle scattering. By means of real spherical harmonic expansion, we derive analytical expressions of the gyration tensor R in terms of experimentally measured anisotropic scattering functions, yielding a tensorial extension of the Guinier law. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach by a model study of an affinely deformed Gaussian chain. We further show that radius of gyration R_g is the source term of intraparticle structure factor at the mean-field limit, and from this perspective, we address the connection between R and conformation asphericity. As a result, the developed method not only facilitates quantitative scattering studies of deforming materials, but also provides insightful information regarding their deformation behavior at the molecular level based on the symmetric properties of real spherical harmonics.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1531253
• Journal Information: Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 10; ISSN 1948-7185
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY