Related papers: Crystallization-Arrested Viscoelastic Phase Separa…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
Depending on the volume fraction and interparticle interactions, colloidal suspensions can form different phases, ranging from fluids, crystals, and glasses to gels. For soft microgels that are made from thermoresponsive polymers, the…
The process of phase separation in elastic solids and viscous fluids is of fundamental importance to the stability and function of soft materials. We explore the dynamics of phase separation and domain growth in a viscoelastic material such…
Organic solar cells (OSCs) containing an active layer consisting of a nanostructured blend of a conjugated polymer like poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and an electron acceptor molecule have the potential of competing against silicon-based…
We present further evidence that gelation is an arrested phase separation in attractive colloid-polymer mixtures, based on a method combining confocal microscopy experiments with numerical simulations recently established in {\bf Nature…
When a polymer solution undergoes viscoelastic phase separation, the polymer-rich phase forms a network-like structure even if it is a minor phase. This unique feature is induced by polymer dynamics, which are constrained by the temporal…
The microscopic model of semi-crystalline polymer in high-elastic state is proposed. The model is based on the assumption that, below the melting temperature, the semi-crystalline polymer comprises crystal nuclei connected by stretched…
Liquid mixtures composed of colloidal particles and much smaller non-adsorbing linear homopolymers can undergo a gelation transition due to polymer-mediated depletion forces. We now show that the addition of linear polymers to suspensions…
Gelation of colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) emerged as a strategy to preserve inherent nanoscale properties in multiscale architectures. Yet available gelation methods still struggle to reliably control nanoscale optical phenomena such as…
We propose a novel phase-field model to predict elastic microphase separation in polymer gels. To this end, we extend the Cahn-Hilliard free-energy functional to incorporate an elastic strain energy and a coupling term. These contributions…
We investigated the viscoelastic properties of colloid-polymer mixtures at intermediate colloid volume fraction and varying polymer concentrations, thereby tuning the attractive interactions. Within the examined range of polymer…
In this work, we demonstrate the formation of a "red-phase" poly[2-methoxy, 5-(2'- ethyl-hexoxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene-PPV] (MEH-PPV) embedded into a host matrix of highly entangled ultra-high molecular weight polystyrene (MEH-PPV/UHMW PS…
Porous gels -- gels with solvent-filled pores that are much larger than their mesh size -- are widely used in engineering and biomedical applications due to their tunable mechanics, high water content, and selective permeability. Among…
We investigate the temperature dependent phase behaviour of mixtures of poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) microgel colloids and a triblock copolymer (PEO-PPO-PEO) surfactant, which undergoes micellisation. Gelation in these systems…
We investigate by time-resolved Synchrotron ultra-small X-ray scattering the dynamics of liquid-liquid phase-separation (LLPS) of gluten protein suspensions following a temperature quench. Samples at a fixed concentration (237 mg/ml) but…
Tuning the chain-end functionality of a short-chain cationic homopolymer, owing to the nature of the initiator used in the ATRP polymerisation step, can be used to mediate the formation of a gel of this poly(electrolyte) in water. While a…
Phase separation has recently emerged as an important organizational principle in the dense and heterogeneous environment within living cells. Here, we use a synthetic system to show that compressive stresses in a polymer network suppress…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
We probe the mechanisms at work in the build-up of thermoreversible gel networks, with the help of hybrid gelatin gels containing a controlled density of irreversible, covalent crosslinks (CL), which we quench below the physical gelation…
The instant crystallization of semi-crystalline polymers have become possible following the recent advances in Fast Scanning Calorimetry (FSC) and enables to make a bridge between the time scale available experimentally with those…