Related papers: Microscopic interactions and emerging elasticity i…
The patterns arising from the differential swelling of gels are investigated experimentally and theoretically as a model for the differential growth of living tissues. Two geometries are considered: a thin strip of soft gel clamped to a…
We study a two-component model for gelation consisting of $f$-functional monomers (the gel) and inert particles (the solvent). After equilibration as a simple liquid, the gel particles are gradually crosslinked to each other until the…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
In this work, we investigate the dynamics of interacting particle systems subjected to repulsive forces, such as lattices of magnetized particles. To this end, we first develop a general model capable of capturing the complete dynamical…
We report three-dimensional particle mechanics static calculations that predict the microstructure evolution during die-compaction of elastic spherical particles up to relative densities close to one. We employ a nonlocal contact…
The formation of colloidal gels is strongly dependent on the volume fraction of the system and the strength of the interactions between the colloids. Here we explore very dilute solutions by the means of numerical simulations, and show…
We study the entanglement entropy between the two outgoing particles in an elastic scattering process. It is formulated within an S-matrix formalism using the partial wave expansion of two-body states, which plays a significant role in our…
Particle beams are important tools for probing atomic and molecular interactions. Here we demonstrate that particle beams also offer a unique opportunity to investigate interactions in macroscopic systems, such as granular media. Motivated…
We use computer simulations to study the dynamics of a physical gel at high densities where gelation and the glass transition interfere. We report and provide detailed physical understanding of complex relaxation patterns for time…
We present an analytical calculation of the hydrodynamic interaction between two spherical particles near an elastic interface such as a cell membrane. The theory predicts the frequency dependent self- and pair-mobilities accounting for the…
We report an experimental investigation of the spontaneous motion of liquid droplets on soft gels with a crosslinking gradient. By systematically adjusting the spatial difference in crosslinking density, we observed that millimeter-sized…
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…
Attractive colloidal gels exhibit solid-like behavior at vanishingly small fractions of solids, owing to ramified space-spanning networks that form due to particle-particle interactions. These networks give the gel its rigidity, and as the…
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…
The electrostatic interaction between pairs of spherical or macroscopically long, parallel cylindrical colloids trapped at fluid interfaces is studied theoretically for the case of small inter-particle separations. Starting from the…
The present work presents a density-functional microscopic model of soft biological tissue. The model was based on a prototype molecular structure from experimentally resolved collagen peptide residues and water clusters and has the…
Active gels play an important role in biology and in inspiring biomimetic active materials, due to their ability to change shape, size and create their own morphology; the relevant mechanics behind these changes is driven by…
We study a model in which particles interact with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions, in an attempt to model the equilibrium cluster phase recently discovered in sterically stabilized colloidal systems in the…
We introduce a contact law for the normal force generated between two contacting, elastically anisotropic bodies of arbitrary geometry. The only requirement is that their surfaces be smooth and frictionless. This anisotropic contact law is…
Connecting the different length scales of characterization is an important, but often very tedious task for soft matter systems. Here we carry out such a procedure for the theoretical description of anisotropic uniaxial magnetic gels. The…