Related papers: Effective Interactions in Soft Materials
Colloidal gels are prime examples of functional materials exhibiting disordered, amorphous, yet meta-stable forms. They maintain stability through short-range attractive forces and their material properties are tunable by external forces.…
We investigate the equilibrium properties of a colloidal solution in contact with a soft interface. As a result of symmetry breaking, surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. In this Letter, particular…
The organization of water molecules and ions between charged mineral surfaces determines the stability of colloidal suspensions and the strength of phase-separated particulate gels. In this article we assemble a density functional that…
Non-covalent interactions are essential in the description of soft matter, including materials of technological importance and biological molecules. In density-functional theory, common approaches fail to describe dispersion forces, an…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
By performing dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the microrheology of isotropic suspensions of hard-core colloidal cuboids. In particular, we infer the local viscoelastic behaviour of these fluids by studying the dynamics of a…
Responsive poly-N-isopropylacrylamide-based microgels are commonly used as model colloids with soft repulsive interactions. It has been shown that the microgel-microgel interaction in solution can be easily adjusted by varying the…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
Understanding multibody interactions between colloidal particles out of equilibrium has a profound impact on dynamical processes such as colloidal self assembly. However, traditional colloidal interactions are effectively quasi-static on…
The structure and mechanical properties of a simple two-dimensional model of a cohesive powder are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Micromechanical ingredients involve elasticity, friction, a short range attraction and,…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
Magnetic fluids are colloidal suspensions of ferromagnetic particles covered with a surfactant layer, dispersed in a host liquid. The existence of cooperative phenomena in such magnetic colloidal systems, makes the determining of their…
A coarse-graining strategy for dilute and semi-dilute solutions of interacting polymers, and of colloid polymer mixtures is briefly described. Monomer degrees of freedom are traced out to derive an effective, state dependent pair potential…
We report a numerical study of equilibrium phase-diagrams and interfacial properties of bulk and confined colloid-polymer mixtures using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. Colloidal particles are treated as hard spheres, while the…
Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
Contacts between particles in dense, sheared suspensions are believed to underpin much of their rheology. Roughness and adhesion are known to constrain the relative motion of particles, and thus globally affect the shear response, but an…
Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…
Complex morphologies and microstructures that emerge during materials growth and solidification are often determined by both equilibrium and kinetic properties of the interface and their crystalline anisotropies. However limited knowledge…
Interfacial properties of colloid--polymer mixtures are examined within an effective one--component representation, where the polymer degrees of freedom are traced out, leaving a fluid of colloidal particles interacting via polymer--induced…