Related papers: Effective Interactions in Soft Materials
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
Recent progress in the understanding of the effect of electrostatics in soft matter is presented. A vast amount of materials contains ions ranging from the molecular scale (e.g., electrolyte) to the meso/macroscopic one (e.g., charged…
Charged soft-matter systems--such as colloidal dispersions and charged polymers--are dominated by attractive forces between constituent like-charged particles when neutralizing counterions of high charge valency are introduced. Such…
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…
Interparticle interactions in charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions, of arbitrary salt concentration, are described at the level of effective interactions in an equivalent one-component system. Integrating out from the partition function…
Interparticle interactions and bulk properties of colloidal suspensions can be substantially modified by addition of nanoparticles. Extreme asymmetries in size and charge between colloidal particles and nanoparticles present severe…
Soft materials consist of basic units that are significantly larger than an atom but much smaller than the overall dimensions of the sample. The label "soft condensed matter" emphasizes that the large basic building blocks of these…
Soft matter materials, such as polymers, membranes, proteins, are often electrically charged. This makes them water soluble, which is of great importance in technological application and a prerequisite for biological function. We discuss a…
Effective electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles, coated with polyelectrolyte brushes and suspended in an electrolyte solvent, are described via linear response theory. The inner cores of the macroions are modeled as hard…
The past two decades have seen a remarkable progress in the development of synthetic colloidal agents which are capable of creating directed motion in an unbiased environment at the microscale. These self-propelling particles are often…
Charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions display a rich variety of microstructural and thermodynamic properties, which are determined by electro-steric interactions between all ionic species. The large size asymmetry between molecular-scale…
We present a detailed numerical study of multi-component colloidal gels interacting sterically and obtained by arrested phase separation. Under deformation, we found that the interplay between the different intertwined networks is key.…
An analytical description of polymer melts and their mixtures as liquids of interacting soft colloidal particles is obtained from liquid-state theory. The derived center-of-mass pair correlation functions with no adjustable parameters…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
We apply extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations and analytical considerations in order to study the conformations and the effective interactions between weakly charged, flexible polyelectrolyte chains in salt-free conditions. We focus on…
Soft condensed matter physics is the study of materials, such as fluids, liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, and emulsions, that are ``soft" to the touch. This article will review some properties, such as the dominance of entropy, that are…
Self-assembly in natural and synthetic molecular systems can create complex aggregates or materials whose properties and functionality rises from their internal structure and molecular arrangement. The key microscopic features that control…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
An important open problem in materials science is whether a direct connection exists between single-particle elastic properties and the macroscopic bulk behavior. Here we address this question by focusing on the archetype of soft colloids:…
Colloidal dispersions are prized as model systems to understand basic properties of materials, and are central to a wide range of industries from cosmetics to foods to agrichemicals. Among the key developments in using colloids to address…