Related papers: Softly Constrained Films
Soft elastic filaments that can be stretched, bent and twisted exhibit a range of topologically and geometrically complex morphologies that include plectonemes, solenoids, knot-like and braid-like structures. We combine numerical…
Freestanding thin films, a class of low-dimensional materials capable of maintaining structural integrity without substrates, have emerged as a forefront research focus. Their unique advantages-circumventing substrate clamping, liberating…
While fields like Artificial Life have made huge strides in quantifying the mechanisms that distinguish living systems from non-living ones, particular mechanisms remain difficult to reproduce in silico. Known as open-endedness, we've been…
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…
Based on experiments and 3-D simulations, we show that a soft elastic film during adhesion and debonding from a rigid flat surface undergoes morphological transitions to pillars, labyrinths and cavities, all of which have the same lateral…
The addition of small amounts of a secondary fluid to a suspension can, through the attractive capillary force, lead to particle bridging and network formation. The capillary bridging phenomenon can be used to stabilize particle suspensions…
Numerical Simulations are employed to create amorphous nano-films of a chosen thickness on a crystalline substrate which induces strain on the film. The films are grown by a vapor deposition technique which was recently developed to create…
We review here the physics of capillary condensation of liquids in confined media, with a special regard to the application in nanotechnologies. The thermodynamics of capillary condensation and thin film adsorption are first exposed along…
The surface of a liquid near a moving contact line is highly curved owing to diverging viscous forces. Thus, microscopic physics must be invoked at the contact line and matched to the hydrodynamic solution farther away. This matching has…
A variational model for epitaxially-strained thin films on rigid substrates is derived both by {\Gamma}-convergence from a transition-layer setting, and by relaxation from a sharp-interface description available in the literature for…
The miniaturization of electronic devices has led to the prominence, in technological applications, of ultra-thin films with a thickness ranging from a few tens of nanometers to just about 1-2 nanometers. While these materials are still…
Many living and physical systems such as cell aggregates, tissues or bacterial colonies behave as unconventional systems of particles that are strongly constrained by volume exclusion and shape interactions. Understanding how these…
The mechanics of animal cells is strongly determined by stress fibers, which are contractile filament bundles that form dynamically in response to extracellular cues. Stress fibers allow the cell to adapt its mechanics to environmental…
Our understanding of both structure and dynamics of adsorbed liquids heavily relies on the capillary wave Hamiltonian, but a thorough test of this model is still lacking. Here we study the capillary wave fluctuations of a liquid film with…
Studies of random close packing of spheres have advanced our knowledge about the structure of systems such as liquids, glasses, emulsions, granular media, and amorphous solids. When these systems are confined their structural properties…
Spatial confinement in nanoporous media affects the structure, thermodynamics and mobility of molecular soft matter often markedly. This article reviews thermodynamic equilibrium phenomena, such as physisorption, capillary condensation,…
Thin elastic solids are easily deformed into a myriad of three-dimensional shapes, which may contain sharp localized structures as in a crumpled candy wrapper, or have smooth and diffuse features like the undulating edge of a flower.…
A fundamental task in developmental biology is to identify the mechanisms which drive morphogenesis. In many cases, pattern formation is driven by the positional information determined by both the gradient of maternal factors and hard-wired…
The principles behind the sharp, singular structures in a crumpled sheet are well understood. Here we discuss more general ways of exploiting such sharp structures to control the shape of a sheet by deforming or forcing it elsewhere. Often,…
Microfluidic channels have emerged as useful tools to control dynamic forcing on transported microscale objects, as encountered in emulsions, biological flows, and other soft matter systems. Tailored channel designs enable precise…