Related papers: Interactions between colloids induced by a soft cr…
Some of our recent studies of the structure and mechanical properties of a special type of nanocomposite are reviewed here. In silica-latex systems, a latex film with silica inclusions is formed from a colloidal solution of both components.…
Spherical colloids that catalyze the interconversion reaction $A \leftrightharpoons B$ between solute molecules $A$ and $B$ whose concentration at infinity is maintained away from equilibrium effectively interact due to the non-uniform…
Conjugated polymers are soft, one-dimensional conductors that admit complex interactions between their polymeric, conformational degrees of freedom and their electronic ones. The presence of extended electronic states along their backbone…
Within the framework of a discrete Gaussian model, we present analytical results for the interaction induced by a lamellar phase between small embedded colloids. We consider the two limits of particles strongly adherent to the adjacent…
Despite decades of intensive studies, the effective interactions between strongly charged colloids still remain elusive. Here we show that a strongly charged surface with a layer of condensed counter- ions behaves effectively as a…
We theoretically study the polarizability and the interactions of neutral complexes consisting of a semi-flexible polyelectrolyte adsorbed onto an oppositely charged spherical colloid. In the systems we studied, the bending energy of the…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of colloidal particles pulled into grafted polymer layers by external fields. The insertion free energy of a single colloid into the polymer layer is qualitatively different for surfaces with an ordered…
We study the effective interaction between differently charged polyelectrolyte-colloid complexes in electrolyte solutions via Monte Carlo simulations. These complexes are formed when short and flexible polyelectrolyte chains adsorb onto…
We present a multi-scale model to study the attachment of spherical particles with a rigid core, coated with binding ligands and in equilibrium with the surrounding, quiescent fluid medium. This class of fluid-immersed adhesion is…
Liquid mixtures composed of colloidal particles and much smaller non-adsorbing linear homopolymers can undergo a gelation transition due to polymer-mediated depletion forces. We now show that the addition of linear polymers to suspensions…
Whereas it is experimentally known that the inclusion of nanoparticles in hydrogels can lead to a mechanical reinforcement, a detailed molecular understanding of the adhesion mechanism is still lacking. Here we use coarse-grained molecular…
We systematically study the relationship between equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase diagrams of a system of short-ranged attractive colloids. Using Monte Carlo and Brownian dynamics simulations we find a window of enhanced…
The effective interaction between charged colloidal particles confined between two planar like-charged walls is investigated using computer simulations of the primitive model describing asymmetric electrolytes. In detail, we calculate the…
Charge-stabilized colloidal spheres dispersed in deionized water are supposed to repel each other. Instead, artifact-corrected video microscopy measurements reveal an anomalous long-ranged like-charge attraction in the interparticle pair…
We combine experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the emergence of clogging in a system of interacting paramagnetic colloidal particles driven against a disordered landscape of larger obstacles. We consider a single aperture…
The settling of colloidal particles with short-ranged attractions is investigated via highly resolved immersed boundary simulations. At modest volume fractions, we show that inter-colloid attractions lead to clustering that reduces the…
We explore the conditions under which colloids can be stabilized by the addition of smaller particles. The largest repulsive barriers between colloids occur when the added particles repel each other with soft interactions, leading to an…
The correlations between the segments of a semidilute polymer solution are found to induce correlations in the positions of small particles added to the solution. Small means a diameter much less than the polymer's correlation length. In…
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…