Related papers: Multiscale Surface-Attached Hydrogel Thin Films wi…
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
Directional transport properties at the nanoscale remain a challenge primarily due to issues associated with control over the underlying anisotropy and scalability to macroscopic scales. In this letter, we develop a facile approach based on…
\textbf{Background} Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks that can absorb and retain a large fraction of liquid. Near a critical sliding velocity, hydrogels pressed against smooth surfaces exhibit time-dependent frictional behavior…
Herein, titania thin films are fabricated by a facile liquid-phase method based on vacuum filtration of a colloidal suspension of titania nanosheets, which is followed by thermal annealing to transform the nanosheet film into anatase TiO2.…
Wrinkling patterns at the metallized surface of thin polymer films are shown to be sensitive to the sticky or slippery character of the polymer/substrate interface (titanium coating, polystyrene film and coated silicon substrate). Selective…
Thin polymer films are widely used as functional and protective coatings. However, determining the composition and processing conditions that produce a desired function is a tedious process due to the large number of factors that must be…
Robust nanoporous polymer films with approximate 100-nm thicknesses would be broadly applicable in technological areas such as flexible sensors, artificial skins, separators, antireflection and self-cleaning films. However, the creation of…
Surface-patterned ZnO thin films were fabricated by direct imprinting on ZnO sol and subsequent annealing process. The polymer-based ZnO sols were deposited on various substrates for the nanoimprint lithography and converted to…
We propose a particle-based method to simulate thin-film fluid that jointly facilitates aggressive surface deformation and vigorous tangential flows. We build our dynamics model from the surface tension driven Navier-Stokes equation with…
Although common in nature, the self-assembly of small molecules at sold-liquid interfaces is difficult to control in artificial systems. The high mobility of dissolved small molecules limits their residence at the interface, typically…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…
Optically accessible, scalable planar nanofluidic channels are attractive for studying transport and localization under confinement. Two dimensional (2D) materials provide large area, atomically flat interfaces for generating such…
The effect of annealing on the dynamical behavior of swelling for ultrathin polyacrylamide films deposited on silicon substrates have been studied using X-ray reflectivity technique. The spin coated polyacrylamide films of similar…
We designed spongy monoliths allowing liquid delivery to their surfaces through continuous nanopore systems (mean pore diameter ca. 40 nm). These nanoporous monoliths were flat or patterned with microspherical structures a few 10 microns in…
With the increasing demand for personalized health monitoring, wearable sensors have gained attention in medical diagnostics and physiological tracking. Hydrogels, known for their mechanical properties and similarity to biological tissues,…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
Programmable materials are desirable for a variety of functional applications that range from biomedical devices, actuators and soft robots to adaptive surfaces and deployable structures. However, current smart materials are often designed…
Multilayer metasurfaces (MLMs) represent a versatile type of three-dimensional optical metamaterials that could enable ultra-thin and multi-functional photonic components. Herein we demonstrate an approach to readily fabricate MLMs…
Elaborating reliable and versatile strategies for efficient light coupling between free space and thin films is of crucial importance for new technologies in energy efficiency. Nanostructured materials have opened unprecedented…