Related papers: Confined polymer nematics: order and packing in a …
The paper presents a short overview of the theoretical, numerical and experimental works on the critical behavior of a dilute polymer solution of long-flexible polymer chains confined in semi-infinite space restricted by a surface or in a…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
We map out the solid-state morphologies formed by model soft-pearl-necklace polymers as a function of bending stiffness $k_b$ spanning the range from fully flexible to rodlike chains. The ratio of Kuhn length to bead diameter ($l_K/r_0$)…
A singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation of a nematic liquid crystal is used to study the equilibrium configuration of a disclination dipole. Unlike the well studied isotropic limit (the so called one…
Polymers are a primary building block in many biomaterials, often interacting with anisotropic backgrounds. While previous studies have considered polymer dynamics within nematic solvents, rarely are the the effects of anisotropic viscosity…
The crystallisation of entangled polymers from their melt is investigated using computer simulation with a coarse-grained model. Using hybrid Monte Carlo simulations enables us to probe the behaviour of long polymer chains. We identify…
Pattern formation in uniaxial polymeric liquid crystals is studied for different dynamic closure approximations. Using the principles of mesoscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamics in a mean-field approach, we derive a Fokker-Planck equation…
Dense rubbery networks are highly entangled polymer systems, with significant topological restrictions for the mobility of neighbouring chains and crosslinks preventing the reptation constraint release. In a mean field approach,…
We develop the scaled particle theory to describe the thermodynamic properties and orientation ordering of a binary mixture of hard spheres (HS) and hard spherocylinders (HSC) confined in a disordered porous medium. Using this theory the…
Packing of particles in confined environments is a common problem in multiple fields. Here, based on the two-dimensional Hertzian particle model, we study the packing of deformable spherical particles under compression, and reveal the…
Using particle-resolved molecular-dynamics simulations, we compute the phase diagram for soft repulsive spherocylinders confined on the surface of a sphere. While crystal (K), smectic (Sm), and isotropic (I) phases exhibit a stability…
A nematic liquid crystal in contact with a grating surface possessing an alternating stripe pattern of locally homeotropic and planar anchoring is studied within the Frank--Oseen model. The combination of both chemical and geometrical…
Entangled networks of stiff biopolymers exhibit complex dynamic response, emerging from the topological constraints that neighboring filaments impose upon each other. We propose a class of reference models for entanglement dynamics of stiff…
Rigid particles pack into structures, such as sand dunes on the beach, whose overall stability is determined by the average number of contacts between particles. However, when packing spatially extended objects with flexible shapes,…
We study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to…
We use the method of dimensional reduction to show that a branching polymer with excluded volume interaction confined between two flat plates has, in the thermodynamic limit, a confinement free energy and density profile that is the same as…
As a model of soft confinement for polymers, we investigated equilibrium shapes of a flexible vesicle that contains a phase-separating polymer solution. To simulate such a system, we combined the phase field theory (PFT) for the vesicle and…
A coarse grained model for flexible polymers end-grafted to repulsive spherical nanoparticles is studied for various chain lengths and grafting densities under good solvent conditions, by Molecular Dynamics methods and density functional…
The scaled particle theory is developed for the description of thermodynamical properties of a mixture of hard spheres and hard spherocylinders. Analytical expressions for free energy, pressure and chemical potentials are derived. From the…
A systematic analysis of defect textures in facetted nanoparticles with polygonal configurations embedded in a nematic matrix is performed using the Landau-de Gennes model, homeotropic strong anchoring in a square domain with uniform…