Related papers: Do cavities matter? Hollow microgels resist crysta…
Hollow microgels, consisting of a pNIPAM polymer network with a central cavity, have significant potential due to their tunable softness and encapsulation capabilities. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we thoroughly characterise the…
Thermoresponsive microgels are soft colloids that find widespread use as model systems for soft matter physics. Their complex internal architecture, made of a disordered and heterogeneous polymer network, has been so far a major challenge…
Superresolution microscopy has become a powerful tool to investigate the internal structure of complex colloidal and polymeric systems, such as microgels, at the nanometer scale. The ability to monitor microgels response to temperature…
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…
Soft colloids are increasingly used as model systems to address fundamental issues such as crystallisation and the glass and jamming transitions. Among the available classes of soft colloids, microgels are emerging as the gold standard.…
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…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles that, when dispersed in a solvent, swell and deswell in response to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, concentration, and $p$H. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we model bulk…
Hollow microgels are elastic polymer shells easily realizable in experiments. Recent works have shown the emergence of buckling events in dilute hollow microgels under the effect of an added osmotic pressure. Here, we perform large-scale…
Controlled crystallization, melting and vitrification are important fundamental processes in nature and technology. However, the microscopic details of these fundamental phenomena still lack understanding, in particular how the cooling rate…
Primordial micro black holes can constitute dark matter if short-distance gravity is modified by extra dimensions or a large number of species and if the memory-burden effect sufficiently suppresses Hawking evaporation. The resulting black…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
Microgels are complex macromolecules. These colloid-sized polymer networks possess internal degrees of freedom and, depending on the polymer(s) they are made of, can acquire a responsiveness to variations of the environment (temperature,…
Recent progress has been made in the numerical modelling of neutral microgel particles with a realistic, disordered structure. In this work we extend this approach to the case of co-polymerised microgels where a thermoresponsive polymer is…
Thermoresponsive microgels find widespread use as colloidal model systems, because their temperature-dependent size allows facile tuning of their volume fraction "in situ". However, an interaction potential unifying their behavior across…
Thermoresponsive microgels are one of the most investigated class of soft colloids, thanks to their ability to undergo a Volume Phase Transition (VPT) close to ambient temperature. However, this fundamental phenomenon still lacks a detailed…
Monolayers of soft colloidal particles confined at fluid interfaces have been attracting increasing interest for fundamental studies and applications alike. However, establishing the relation between their internal architecture, which is…
To explore dense packings of soft colloids, scattering experiments are ideal to access the structure factor. However, for soft microgels determination of the structure factor is difficult because of the low contrast of the polymer network…
We present computer simulations of a realistic model of microgels. Unlike the regular network frameworks usually assumed in the simulation literature, we model and simulate a realistic and efficient synthesis route, mimicking cross-linking…
Crystal defects crucially influence the properties of crystalline materials and have been extensively studied. Even for the simplest type of defect - the point defect - however, basic properties such as their diffusive behavior, and their…
Microgels, cross-linked polymers with submicrometer size, are ideal soft model systems. While spherical microgels have been studied extensively, anisotropic microgels have been hardly investigated. In this study, we compare the interfacial…