The coil-globule transition of polymers of long rigid monomers connected by flexible spacers

A simple model of a polymer with long rigid segments which interact via excluded volume repulsions and short ranged attractions is proposed. The coil-globule transition of this model polymer is strongly first order, the globule is crystalline and the coil which coexists with the globule is swollen. A virial expansion truncated at low order is shown to provide a very poor approximation to the free energy and so a cell theory is used to calculate the free energy of the globule.