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As the interface between human and machine becomes blurred, hydrogel incorporated electronics and devices have emerged to be a new class of flexible/stretchable electronic and ionic devices due to their extraordinary properties, such as…
Polymer gels with photo-responsive cross-links enable tunable mechanics and surface morphologies, making them promising for adaptive materials. While prior work on coumarin cross-linked gels has focused on photo-mediated events in dilute…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of an idealized polymer melt surrounding a nanoscopic filler particle to probe the effects of a filler on the local melt structure and dynamics. We show that the glass transition temperature $T_g$…
Thermoresponsive hydrogels have been studied intensively for creating smart drug carriers and controlled drug delivery. Understanding the drug release kinetics and corresponding transport mechanisms of nanoparticles (NPs) in a…
The temperature dependence of the hydrodynamic boundary condition between a PDMS melt and two different non-attractive surfaces made of either an OTS (octadecyltrichlorosilane) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) or a grafted layer of short PDMS…
We report molecular dynamics simulations of a hydrophobic polymer-chain in aqueous solution between $260 {K}$ and $420 {K}$ at pressures of $1 {bar}$, $3000 {bar}$, and $4500 {bar}$. The simulations reveal a hydrophobically collapsed state…
Core-shell Au@pNIPAM nanocomposites are assembled through a simple and inexpensive approach where drops of bulk nanoparticle solution are left to dry on ITO surfaces at fixed and finely tuned temperatures. Interparticle distances are…
Hierarchical polymer structures such as pNIPAM microgels have been extensively studied for their ability to undergo significant structural and physical transformations that can be controlled by external stimuli such as temperature, pH or…
Hydrogel-based soft actuators can operate in sensitive environments, bridging the gap of rigid machines interacting with soft matter. However, while stimuli-responsive hydrogels can undergo extreme reversible volume changes of up to ~90%,…
Combining elastic incoherent neutron scattering experiments at different resolutions with molecular dynamics simulations, we report the observation of a protein-like dynamical transition in linear chains of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). We…
We employ small-angle X-ray and dynamic light scattering to investigate the microscopic structure and dynamics of dense suspensions of ultra-low crosslinked (ULC) poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) microgels. By probing the supercooled…
The phase behavior of poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) nanoparticles dispersed in aqueous medium is investigated as a function of temperature using static and dynamic light scattering techniques. The diameter, d of the particles, as determined…
In this work, we perform a systematic computer simulation study of ice premelting, and explore the thickness and structure of quasi-liquid layers formed at the interface of ice with substrates of different hydrophilicity. Our study shows…
A molecular dynamics simulation of sublimation of silicene and silicon films of different thikness is performed. It is shown that thiner films sublimate at lower temperatures. The sublimation temperature comes to a saturated value of…
Microgels are often discussed as well-suited model system for soft colloids. In contrast to rigid spheres, the microgel volume and, coupled to this, the volume fraction in dispersion can be manipulated by external stimuli. This behavior is…
The formation of smart emulsions or foams whose stability can be controlled on-demand by switching external parameters is of great interest for basic research and applications. An emerging group of smart stabilizers are microgels, which are…
Combining elastic incoherent neutron scattering and differential scanning calorimetry, we investigate the occurrence of the volume phase transition (VPT) in very concentrated PNIPAM microgel suspensions, from a polymer weight fraction of…
Dewetting of ultrathin (< 100 nm) polymer films, by heating above the glass transition, produces droplets of sizes of the order of microns and mean separations between droplets of the order of tens of microns. These relatively large length…
Vanadium silicide (V$_3$Si) is a promising superconductor for integration with silicon-based electronics, however the interfacial growth kinetics have a strong influence on the resulting superconducting properties and are not yet fully…
Ionic microgel particles are intriguing systems in which the properties of thermo-responsive polymeric colloids are enriched by the presence of charged groups. In order to rationalize their properties and predict the behaviour of microgel…