Related papers: Anisotropic Microgels show their Soft Side
Aqueous suspensions of geometrically anisometric (2D) sodium-montmorillonite (Na-Mt) particles display a sol-gel transition at very low solids concentrations. The underlying microstructure of the gel has remained a point of contention since…
Attractive dipole interactions can be induced between equally charged soft nanoparticles under the influence of AC electric fields. The combination of charge repulsion and dipole attraction, along with different screening responses from an…
In this work, a two dimensional system of polymer grafted nanoparticles is analyzed using large-scale Langevin Dymanics simulations. Effective core-softened potentials were obtained for two cases: one where the polymers are free to rotate…
We investigate the spatial distribution of spin orientation in magnetic nanoparticles consisting of hard and soft magnetic layers. The nanoparticles are synthesized in a core / shell spherical morphology where the magnetically hard, high…
Interfacial polar molecules feature a strongly anisotropic response to applied electric field, favoring dipole orientations parallel to the interface. In water, in particular, this effect combines with generic orientational preferences…
Soft particles can be better emulsifiers than hard particles because they stretch at fluid interfaces. This deformation can increase adsorption energies by orders of magnitude relative to rigid particles. The deformation of a particle at an…
We uncover anisotropic permeability in microfluidic deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) arrays. A DLD array can achieve high-resolution bimodal size-based separation of microparticles, including bioparticles, such as cells. For an…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
By molecular dynamic simulations we study a system of particles interacting through a continuous isotropic pairwise core-softened potential consisting of a repulsive shoulder and an attractive well. The model displays a phase diagram with…
Hard-core/soft shell (HCSS) particles have been shown to self-assemble into a remarkably rich variety of structures under compression due to the simple interplay between the hard-core and soft-shoulder length scales in their interactions.…
Anisotropic aerogel possesses structure which exhibits a strong influence over the composition and orientation of the order parameter of imbibed superfluid $^3$He. Computational studies have identified stretched aerogel with plane-like…
At sufficiently low temperatures and high densities, repulsive spherical particles in two-dimensions (2d) form close-packed structures with six-fold symmetry. By contrast, when the interparticle interaction has an attractive anisotropic…
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…
Simple models based on isotropic interparticle attractions often fail to capture experimentally observed structures of colloidal gels formed through spinodal decomposition and subsequent arrest: the resulting gels are typically denser and…
Liquid shells (e.g. double emulsions, vesicles etc.) are susceptible to interfacial instability and rupturing when driven out of mechanical equilibrium. This poses a significant challenge for the design of liquid shell based micro-machines,…
Active colloidal particles provide versatile model systems for exploring non-equilibrium physics in motile matter. To date, most experimental realizations have focused on spherical particles, largely due to fabrication constraints. However,…
Ferronematic phases, composed of liquid crystals doped with magnetic nanoparticles, exhibit unique magnetomechanical coupling effects that are of interest for responsive materials. In this study, we investigate the influence of…
We examine a two-dimensional nonequilibrium lattice model where particles adsorb at empty sites and desorb when the number of neighbouring particles is greater than a given threshold. In a certain range of parameters the model exhibits…
Using a statistical-mechanics approach, we study the effects of geometry and self-avoidance on the ordering of slender filaments inside non-isotropic containers, considering cortical microtubules in plant cells, and packing of genetic…