Related papers: Magnetically induced elastic deformations of magne…
Shape-programmable soft materials that exhibit integrated multifunctional shape manipulations, including reprogrammable, untethered, fast, and reversible shape transformation and locking, are highly desirable for a plethora of applications,…
We study the finite-size and surface effects on the thermal and spatial behaviors of the magnetisation of a small magnetic particle. We consider two systems: 1) A box-shaped isotropic particle of simple cubic structure with either periodic…
Biological membranes are elastic media in which the presence of a transmembrane protein leads to local bilayer deformation. The energetics of deformation allow two membrane proteins in close proximity to influence each other's equilibrium…
Granular materials often present correlations between particle size and shape due to their geological formation and mechanisms of weathering and fragmentation. It is known that particle shape strongly affects shear strength. However, the…
In granular media, the presence of even small amounts of interparticle cohesion manifests as an increase in the bulk strength and stiffness, effects that are typically associated with an increase in the average number of constraints per…
We use dedicated microfluidic devices to expose soft hydrogel particles to a rapid change in the externally applied osmotic pressure and observe a non-monotonic response: After an initial rapid compression the particle slowly reswells to…
Polyelectrolyte gels are a very attractive class of actuation materials with remarkable electronic and mechanical properties with a great similarity to biological contractile tissues. They consist of a polymer network with ionizable groups…
We perform numerical simulations to study self-assembly of nanoparticles mediated by an elastic planar surface. We show how the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of these surfaces leads to anisotropic interactions between the…
The deformation and flow of disordered solids, such as metallic glasses and concentrated emulsions, involves swift localized rearrangements of particles that induce a long-range deformation field. To describe these heterogeneous processes,…
Particle surface chemistry and internal softness are two fundamental parameters in governing the mechanical properties of dense colloidal suspensions, dictating structure and flow, therefore of interest from materials fabrication to…
At low densities, electrons confined to two dimensions in a delta-doped heterostructure can arrange themselves into self-consistent droplets due to disorder and screening effects. We use this observation to show that at low temperatures,…
Active metamaterials are a type of metamaterial with tunable properties enabled by structural reconfigurations. Existing active metamaterials often achieve only a limited number of structural reconfigurations upon the application of an…
Plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is a jelly-like soft dielectric material that attracted substantial interest recently as a new type of electro-active polymers. Under electric fields of several hundred Volt/mm, PVC gels undergo large…
Nematic elastomers and glasses deform spontaneously when subjected to temperature changes. This property can be exploited in the design of heterogeneously patterned thin sheets that deform into a non-trivial shape when heated or cooled. In…
We present a detailed numerical study of multi-component colloidal gels interacting sterically and obtained by arrested phase separation. Under deformation, we found that the interplay between the different intertwined networks is key.…
We study the uniaxial compressive behavior of disordered colloidal free-standing micropillars composed of a bidisperse mixture of 3 and 6 um polystyrene particles. Mechanical annealing of confined pillars enables variation of the packing…
The accurate determination of the elastic properties is non-trivial for metallic foils. The measured elastic modulus is often described in literature as significantly smaller than the respective modulus of the bulk counterparts. This paper…
The size and shape of a large variety of polymeric particles, including biological cells, star polymers, dendrimes, and microgels, depend on the applied stresses as the particles are extremely soft. In high-density suspensions these…
We present a density-functional study of a binary phase-separating mixture of soft core particles immersed in a random matrix of quenched soft core particles of larger size. This is a model for a binary polymer mixture immersed in a…
Surface tension governed by differential adhesion can drive fluid particle mixtures to sort into separate regions, i.e., demix. Does the same phenomenon occur in confluent biological tissues? We begin to answer this question for epithelial…