Related papers: Entropy driven thermo-gelling vitrimer
The thermosensitive behavior of microgel particles suspended in solvents, i.e. their temperature-dependent swelling properties, has triggered ongoing interest in industry and academia over the past forty years. The most-studied polymer is…
We consider a microscopic model of a polymer blend that is prone to phase separation. Permanent crosslinks are introduced between randomly chosen pairs of monomers, drawn from the Deam-Edwards distribution. Thereby, not only density but…
We consider viscous, heat conducting mixtures of molecularly miscible chemical species forming a fluid in which the constituents can undergo chemical reactions. Assuming a common temperature for all components, we derive a closed system of…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
Vitrimers - a class of polymer networks which are covalently crosslinked and insoluble like thermosets, but flow when heated like thermoplastics - contain dynamic links and/or crosslinks that undergo an associative exchange reaction. These…
We calculate the entanglement entropy of strongly correlated low-dimensional fermions in metallic, superfluid and antiferromagnetic insulating phases. The entanglement entropy reflects the degrees of freedom available in each phase for…
Recent advances in our understanding of thermal transport in nanocrystalline systems are responsible for the integration of new technologies into advanced energy systems, including thermoelectric refrigeration systems and renewable energy…
In sharp contrast to the prevailing view that electric fields promote water freezing, here we show by molecular dynamics simulations that monolayer ice confined between two parallel plates can melt into liquid water under perpendicularly…
We study at- and out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a single homopolymer chain at low temperature using molecular dynamics simulations. The main quantities of interest are the average root mean square displacement of the monomers below the…
The helix is a ubiquitous motif for biopolymers. We propose a heuristic, entropically based model that predicts helix formation in a system of hard spheres and semiflexible tubes. We find that the entropy of the spheres is maximized when…
Active materials with distinctive nonequilibrium properties have diverse materials science applications. Active systems are common in living matter, such as the filament network in the cell that is activated by molecular motors, and in…
We study of the dynamics of ring polymers confined to diffuse in a background gel at low concentrations. We do this in order to probe the inter-play between topology and dynamics in ring polymers. We develop an algorithm that takes into…
The elasticity of rubbery polymer networks has been considered to be entropy-driven. On the other hand, studies on single polymer chain mechanics have revealed that the elasticity of ultimately stretched polymer chains is dominated by the…
Polymers are widely used in industry and in our daily life because of their diverse functionality, light weight, low cost and excellent chemical stability. However, on some applications such as heat exchangers and electronic packaging, the…
The extension of thermodynamic principles to active matter remains a challenge due to the non-equilibrium nature inherent to active systems. In this study, we introduce a framework to assess entropy in our minimal macroscopic experiment…
By taking advantage of the molecular weight dependence of the glass transition of polymers and their ability to form perfectly miscible blends, we propose a way to modify the fragility of a system, from fragile to strong, keeping the same…
The increasing worldwide energy consumption calls for the design of more efficient energy systems. Thermoelectrics could be used to convert waste heat back to useful electric energy if only more efficient materials were available. The ideal…
Recent experimental results suggest that the E. coli chromosome feels a self-attracting interaction of osmotic origin, and is condensed in foci by bridging interactions. Motivated by these findings, we explore a generic modeling framework…
The authors use two insulator layers in thermotunnel refrigerator to modify the shape of the tunneling barrier so that electrons with high kinetic energy pass it with increased probability. Theoretical analysis show that the overall…
We present a mesoscopic model for thermoelectric phenomena in terms of an interacting particle system, a lattice electron gas dynamics that is a suitable extension of the standard simple exclusion process. We concentrate on electronic heat…