Related papers: Stiffening attractive suspensions with solid inclu…
We present the results of an experimental investigation into buoyant rigid spheres rising through highly concentrated collections of hydrated hydrogel particles. The volume fraction of particles is such that the mechanical properties of the…
Current experimental and theoretical studies on the effect of intermolecular interactions on molecular conduction appear to be in conflict with each other. In particular, some experimental results, e.g., the observation of 2-dimensional…
We compare the slow dynamics of irreversible gels, colloidal gels, glasses and spin glasses by analyzing the behavior of the so called non-linear dynamical susceptibility, a quantity usually introduced to quantitatively characterize the…
Solid interfaces have intrinsic elasticity. However, in most experiments, this is obscured by bulk stresses. Through microscopic observations of the contact-line geometry of a partially wetting droplet on an anisotropically stretched…
We develop and validate a simulation framework for colloidal gelation. We first reproduce the benchmark results of Santos, Campanella, and Carignano for spherical, gel-forming particles, then extend the methodology to more complex systems…
By performing dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the microrheology of isotropic suspensions of hard-core colloidal cuboids. In particular, we infer the local viscoelastic behaviour of these fluids by studying the dynamics of a…
The settling of colloidal particles with short-ranged attractions is investigated via highly resolved immersed boundary simulations. At modest volume fractions, we show that inter-colloid attractions lead to clustering that reduces the…
The local elastic properties of strongly disordered host material are investigated using the theory of correlated random matrices. A significant increase in stiffness is shown in the interfacial region, which thickness depends on the…
Soft colloids allow to explore high density states well beyond random close packing. An important open question is whether softness controls the dynamics under these dense conditions. While experimental works reported conflicting results,…
Rigidity percolation (RP) occurs when mechanical stability emerges in disordered networks as constraints or components are added. Here we discuss RP with structural correlations, an effect ignored in classical theories albeit relevant to…
Soft, amorphous solids such as tissues, foams, and emulsions are composed of deformable particles. However, the effect of single-particle deformability on the collective behavior of soft solids is still poorly understood. We perform…
Using discrete element simulations based on molecular dynamics, we investigate the mechanical behavior of sheared, dry, frictional granular media in the "dense" and "critical" regimes. We find that this behavior is partitioned between…
Solid solution effects on the strength of the finest nanocrystalline grain sizes are studied with molecular dynamics simulations of different Cu-based alloys. We find evidence of both solid solution strengthening and softening, with trends…
Thermoresponsive microgels are polymeric colloidal networks that can change their size in response to a temperature variation. This peculiar feature is driven by the nature of the solvent-polymer interactions, which triggers the so-called…
We study gelation in suspensions of model colloidal particles with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions by means of three-dimensional fluorescence confocal microscopy. At low packing fractions, particles form…
We demonstrate that an extended picture of kinetic constraints in glass-forming liquids is sufficient to explain dynamic anomalies observed in dense suspensions of strongly attracting colloidal particles. We augment a simple model of…
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…
Rheological responses are the most relevant features to describe soft matter. So far, such constitutive relations are still not well understood in terms of small scale properties, although this knowledge would help the design of synthetic…
Inorganic nanocrystal gels retain distinct properties of individual nanocrystals while offering tunable, network structure-dependent characteristics. We review different mechanisms for assembling gels from colloidal nanocrystals including…
Soft materials, such as liquids, polymers, foams, gels, colloids, granular materials, and most soft biological materials, play an important role in our daily lives. From a mechanical viewpoint, soft materials can easily achieve large…