Related papers: Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation in an Elastic Netwo…
Cells operate in part by compartmentalizing chemical reactions. For example, recent work has shown that chromatin, the material that contains the cell's genome, can auto-regulate its structure by utilizing reaction products (proteins, RNA)…
Phase separated macromolecules play essential roles in many biological and synthetic systems. Physical characterization of these systems can be challenging because of limited sample volumes, particularly for phase-separated proteins. Here,…
We develop a model for the thermodynamics and evaporation dynamics of aerosol droplets of a liquid such as water, surrounded by the gas. When the temperature and the chemical potential (or equivalently the humidity) are such that the vapour…
Hypothesis: Immiscible liquids are commonly used to achieve unique functions in many applications, where the breakup of compound droplets in airflow is an important process. Due to the existence of the liquid-liquid interface, compound…
Sorting and separation of microparticles is a challenging problem of interdisciplinary nature. Existing technologies can differentiate microparticles by their bulk properties, such as size, density, electric polarizability, etc. The next…
When liquid-crystal elastomers are prepared without any alignment, disordered polydomain structures emerge as the materials are cooled into the nematic phase. These polydomain structures have been attributed to quenched disorder in the…
Bicontinuous microstructures are essential to the function of diverse natural and synthetic systems. Their synthesis has been based on two approaches: arrested phase separation or self-assembly of block copolymers. The former is attractive…
Globular proteins as well as recently synthesized colloids engineered with differently charged surface regions have in common a reduced bonding valence and a complex interaction pattern dominated by like-charge attraction and…
Phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins is important for the formation of membraneless organelles, or biomolecular condensates, which play key roles in the regulation of biochemical processes within cells. In this work, we…
Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process…
This article focuses on phase and aggregation behavior for linear chains composed of blocks of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments. Phase and conformational transitions of patterned chains are relevant for understanding liquid-liquid…
Controlling the spatial distribution of liquid droplets on surfaces via surface energy patterning can be used to control material delivery to specified regions via selective liquid/solid wetting. While studies of the equilibrium shape of…
Living cells are characterized by the micrometric confinement of various macromolecules at high concentrations. Using droplets containing binary polymer blends as artificial cells, we previously showed that cell-sized confinement causes…
Living cells use phase separation and concentration gradients to organize chemical compartments in space. Here, we present a theoretical study of droplet dynamics in gradient systems. We derive the corresponding growth law of droplets and…
Evaporating droplets of polymer or colloid solution may produce a glassy crust at the liquid-vapour interface, which subsequently deforms as an elastic shell. For sessile droplets, the known radial outward flow of solvent is expected to…
Emulsions ripen with an average droplet size increasing in time. In chemically active emulsions, coarsening can be absent, leading to a non-equilibrium steady state with mono-disperse droplet sizes. By considering a minimal model for phase…
Precise control of multiphase microfluidic flows underpins applications ranging from chemical processing to biomedical diagnostics. We investigate the response of a liquid--liquid coflow in a rectangular microchannel to an externally…
The present article highlights an approach to generate contrasting patterns from drying droplets in a liquid bridge configuration, different from well-known coffee rings. Reduction of the confinement distance (the gap between the solid…
Short DNA linkers are increasingly being exploited for driving specific self-assembly of Brownian objects. DNA-functionalised colloids can assemble into ordered or amorphous materials with tailored morphology. Recently, the same approach…
Traditional plastics demand a choice between durability (thermosets) and reprocessability (thermoplastics). Vitrimers are a recent class of polymer network combining both these qualities. Their increased cost of production can be offset by…