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Harnessing the topology of ring polymers as a design motif in functional nanomaterials is becoming a promising direction in the field of soft matter. For example, the ring topology of DNA plasmids prevents the relaxation of excess twist…
Granular materials exhibit intricate force networks, often concentrated in chains rather than being uniformly distributed. These meso-scale structures are complex to characterize, owing to their heterogeneous and anisotropic nature. We…
Precise control over the flow behavior of liquids is a critical problem and is demanding for multifaceted applications. Introducing surface-engineered nanoparticles into the liquid can tune the flow behavior. However, the extent of…
Developing quantitative methods for characterizing structural properties of force chains in densely packed granular media is an important step toward understanding or predicting large-scale physical properties of a packing. A promising…
Understanding the relationship between the microscopic structure and topology of a material and its macroscopic properties is a fundamental challenge across a wide range of systems. Here, we investigate the viscoelasticity of DNA nanostar…
The growing interest in topological materials with symmetry-protected surface states as catalytic platforms has sparked the emerging field of topocatalysis. As robust transport is one of the key features of topological insulators, here we…
For nearly a century, introduction of nanoparticles to elastomers has yielded extraordinarily tough nanocomposites that are critical to technologies from actuators to tires. The mechanisms by which this reinforcement occurs have…
We develop a thermodynamic framework for closed and open chemical networks applicable to non-elementary reactions that do not need to obey mass action kinetics. It only requires the knowledge of the kinetics and of the standard chemical…
Micelles and vesicles are promising candidates in targeted drug/gene delivery, bioreactors, and templates for nanoparticle synthesis. We investigated the morphology and dynamics of PEG-PDMS-PEG triblock copolymer nano-scale assemblies…
Elucidating the physics of a concentrated suspension of ring polymers, or of an ensemble of ring polymers in a complex environment, is an important outstanding question in polymer physics. Many of the characteristic features of these…
The mechanics of single-chain stretching and rupture are central to understanding the resilience of biological polymers and designing strong and tough soft materials such as double-network gels and multi-network elastomers. In this work, we…
Self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit rich non-equilibrium phenomena and have promising applications in fields such as drug delivery and self-assembled active materials. Previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that…
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…
Thermally actuated twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) artificial muscles exhibit exceptional specific work capacities but are limited by an inherent competition between load-bearing capacity and actuation stroke. To address this limitation,…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
We present a systematic mathematical analysis of the qualitative steady-state response to rate perturbations in large classes of reaction networks. This includes multimolecular reactions and allows for catalysis, enzymatic reactions,…
Thermal conduction in polymer nanocomposites depends on several parameters including the thermal conductivity and geometrical features of the nanoparticles, the particle loading, their degree of dispersion and formation of a percolating…
Living matter moves, deforms, and organizes itself. In cells this is made possible by networks of polymer filaments and crosslinking molecules that connect filaments to each other and that act as motors to do mechanical work on the network.…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Learning influence pathways of a network of dynamically related processes from observations is of considerable importance in many disciplines. In this article, influence networks of agents which interact dynamically via linear dependencies…