Related papers: Phase Separation and Ripening in a Viscoelastic Ge…
Phase separation has recently emerged as an important organizational principle in the dense and heterogeneous environment within living cells. Here, we use a synthetic system to show that compressive stresses in a polymer network suppress…
The formation and destabilisation of viscoelastic filaments are of importance in many industrial and biological processes. Filament instabilities have been observed for viscoelastic fluids but recently also for soft elastic solids. In this…
Elastic microphase separation refers to equilibrium patterns that form by phase separation in elastic gels. Recent experiments revealed a continuous phase transition from the homogeneous phase to a regularly patterned phase, whose period…
Phase separation of various materials has been studied for one and a half centuries. In the last two decades, phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids has received enormous attention, due its relevance to cellular functions. However,…
We numerically investigate viscoelastic phase separation in polymer solutions under shear using a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model. The gross variables in our model are the polymer volume fraction and a conformation tensor. The latter…
Phase separation of a liquid mixture embedded within an elastic network is relevant to a wide range of natural and industrial systems, including biomolecular condensates interacting with the cytoskeleton, structural colouring in bird…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is an important mechanism for compartmentalizing the cell's cytoplasm, allowing the dynamic organization of the components necessary for survival. However, it is not clear how phase separation is affected by…
Phase separation is a fundamental phenomenon that produces spatially heterogeneous patterns in soft matter. In this Lecture Note we show that phase separation in these materials generally belongs to what we call "viscoelastic phase…
Inspired by recent experiments, we present a phase-field model of microphase separation in an elastomer swollen with a solvent. The imbalance between the molecular scale of demixing and the mesoscopic scale beyond which elasticity operates…
A new model for viscoelastic phase separation is proposed, based on a systematically derived conservative two-fluid model. Dissipative effects are included by phenomenological viscoelastic terms. By construction, the model is consistent…
Living and engineered systems rely on the stable coexistence of two interspersed liquid phases. Yet surface tension drives their complete separation. Here we show that stable droplets of uniform and tuneable size can be produced through…
We show here a general model of phase separation in isotropic condensed matter, namely, a viscoelastic model. We propose that the bulk mechanical relaxation modulus that has so far been ignored in previous theories plays an important role…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…
We review understanding of kinetics of fluid phase separation in various space dimensions. Morphological differences, percolating or disconnected, based on overall composition in a binary liquid or density in a vapor-liquid system, have…
We propose a novel phase-field model to predict elastic microphase separation in polymer gels. To this end, we extend the Cahn-Hilliard free-energy functional to incorporate an elastic strain energy and a coupling term. These contributions…
Heterogeneities in the cell membrane due to coexisting lipid phases have been conjectured to play a major functional role in cell signaling and membrane trafficking. Thereby the material properties of multiphase systems, such as the line…
Liquid droplets on soft solids, such as soft polymeric gels, can induce substantial surface deformations, leading to the formation of wetting ridges at contact points. While these contact ridges have been shown to govern the rich surface…
Phase separation is as familiar as watching vinegar separating from oil in vinegrette. The observation that phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids is widespread in living cells has opened an entire field of research into the…
Understanding how multi-component liquid mixtures undergo phase separation is central to elucidating biophysical organization in the cell. Here, combining analytical and numerical results, we characterise the dynamics of mixtures with…
Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…