Related papers: Effective Interactions in Soft Materials
A wide variety of experimental results and theoretical investigations in recent years have convincingly demonstrated that several transition metal oxides and other materials, have dominant states that are not spatially homogeneous. This…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
Chain-like macromolecules (polymers) show characteristic adsorption properties due to their flexibility and internal degrees of freedom, when attracted to surfaces and interfaces. In this review we discuss concepts and features that are…
The presence of nanoparticles in a diblock copolymer leads to changes in the morphology and properties of the matrix and can produce highly organized hybrid materials. The resulting material properties depend not only on the polymer…
Microfluidic devices manufactured from soft polymeric materials have emerged as a paradigm for cheap, disposable and easy-to-prototype fluidic platforms for integrating chemical and biological assays and analyses. The interplay between the…
The mechanical properties of a disordered heterogeneous medium depend, in general, on a complex interplay between multiple length scales. Connecting local interactions to macroscopic observables, such as stiffness or fracture, is thus…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
Thermosensitive microgels are widely studied hybrid systems combining properties of polymers and colloidal particles in a unique way. Due to their complex morphology their interactions and packing, and consequentially the viscoelastcity of…
The term active matter describes diverse systems, spanning macroscopic (e.g. shoals of fish and flocks of birds) to microscopic scales (e.g. migrating cells, motile bacteria and gels formed through the interaction of nanoscale molecular…
Physical properties of colloidal materials can be modified by addition of nanoparticles. Within a model of like-charged mixtures of particles governed by effective electrostatic interactions, we explore the influence of charged…
The present review summarizes and assesses recent theoretical and experimental advances, with special emphasis on the effective interaction between charge-stabilized colloids, in the bulk or in confined geometries, and on the ambiguities of…
Limited bonding valence, usually accompanied by well-defined directional interactions and selective bonding mechanisms, is nowadays considered among the key ingredients to create complex structures with tailored properties: even though…
The connection between fundamental interactions acting in molecules in a fluid and macroscopically measured properties, such as the viscosity between colloidal particles coated with polymers, is studied here. The role that hydrodynamic and…
Monolayers of soft colloidal particles confined at fluid interfaces have been attracting increasing interest for fundamental studies and applications alike. However, establishing the relation between their internal architecture, which is…
Colloidal dispersions are commonly encountered in everyday life and represent an important class of complex fluid. Of particular significance for many commercial products and industrial processes is the ability to control and manipulate the…
Materials that can be deformed by thermal stresses at room temperature are called soft materials. Colloidal suspensions comprising solid particles evenly distributed in a fluid phase (smoke, fog, ink and milk, for example),…
How frictional effects emerge at the microscopic level in particulate materials remains a challenging question, particularly in systems subject to thermal fluctuations due to the transient nature of interparticle contacts. Here, we directly…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles constituted by cross-linked polymer networks with a high potential for applications. In particular, after adsorption at a fluid interface, interfacial tension provides two-dimensional (2D) confinement…
Soft pair potentials predict a reentrant liquid phase for high concentrations, a behavior not observed experimentally. Here, very soft microgels confined at an oil-water interface are used as a model system of particles interacting via a…
Recently there has been an increase in demand for soft and biocompatible electronic devices capable of withstanding large stretch. Ionically conductive polymers present a promising class of soft materials for these emerging applications due…