Related papers: Ferrogels cross-linked by magnetic particles: Fiel…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
Reversible crosslinkers can enable several desirable mechanical properties, such as improved toughness and self-healing, when incorporated in polymer networks for bioengineering and structural applications. In this work, we performed…
We report on the formation of surface instabilities in a layer of thermoreversible ferrogel when exposed to a vertical magnetic field. Both static and time dependent magnetic fields are employed. Under variations of temperature, the…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
Microgels are colloidal-scale particles individually made of crosslinked polymer networks that can swell and deswell in response to external stimuli, such as changes to temperature or pH. Despite a large amount of experimental activities on…
Magnetic gels and elastomers are promising candidates to construct reversibly excitable soft actuators, triggered from outside by magnetic fields. These magnetic fields induce or alter the magnetic interactions between discrete rigid…
Soft nanoparticles hold promise as smart emulsifiers due to their high degree of deformability, permeability and stimuli responsive properties. By means of large-scale simulations we investigate the structural properties of nanogels at…
Predicting the mechanical response of the soft gel materials under external deformation is of paramount importance in many areas, such as foods, pharmaceuticals, solid-liquid separations, cosmetics, aerogels and drug delivery. Most of the…
It is established that the mechanical properties of hydrogels control the fate of (stem) cells. However, despite its importance, a one-to-one correspondence between gels' stiffness and cell behaviour is still missing from literature. In…
Particles added to a fluid interface can be used as a surface stabilizer in the food, oil and cosmetic industries. As an alternative to rigid particles, it is promising to consider highly deformable particles that can adapt their…
The cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells provides mechanical support and governs intracellular transport. These functions rely on the complex mechanical properties of networks of semiflexible protein filaments. Recent theoretical interest has…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles that, when dispersed in a solvent, swell and deswell in response to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, concentration, and $p$H. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we model bulk…
Deformable colloids and macromolecules adsorb at interfaces, as they decrease the interfacial energy between the two media. The deformability, or softness, of these particles plays a pivotal role in the properties of the interface. In this…
Using the theory of elasticity of polymer gels we show that large-scale cross-link density patterns written into the structure of the network in the melt state, can be revealed upon swelling by monitoring the monomer density patterns. We…
We study the elasticity of fibrous materials composed of generalized stiff polymers. It is shown that in contrast to cellular foam-like structures affine strain fields are generically unstable. Instead, a subtle interplay between the…
Soft particles can be better emulsifiers than hard particles because they stretch at fluid interfaces. This deformation can increase adsorption energies by orders of magnitude relative to rigid particles. The deformation of a particle at an…
Many types of mammalian cells exert active contractile forces and mechanically deform their elastic substrate, to accomplish biological functions such as cell migration. These substrate deformations provide a mechanism by which cells can…
Networks of filamentous proteins play a crucial role in cell mechanics. These cytoskeletal networks, together with various crosslinking and other associated proteins largely determine the (visco)elastic response of cells. In this letter we…
In this paper, we propose a novel, thermodynamically consistent phase field model to simulate the deformation and breakup of a ferrodroplet that is immersed in a viscous medium and subject to an applied uniform magnetic field. Instead of…
Embedding magnetic colloidal particles in an elastic polymer matrix leads to smart soft materials that can reversibly be addressed from outside by external magnetic fields. We discover a pronounced nonlinear superelastic stress-strain…