Figure 1.

Scheme of the energetic decomposition of the external work into unfolding (dissipated) energy Q_i, i = 1,2,3,4 and elastic stored energy Φ_e (dashed region) for a typical unfolding force–elongation curve (continuous line) reproduced from [14]. Dashed lines represent approximating worm-like chain curves each characterized by a different contour length L_c(i), i = 1, … , 4; l_c represents the (fixed) contour length increase at each unfolding event.