Related papers: Symmetry-Breaking and Self-Sorting in Block Copoly…
The fabrication of versatile building blocks that are reliably self-assemble into desired ordered and disordered phases is amongst the hottest topics in contemporary material science. To this end, microscopic units of varying complexity,…
Nanotubes behave as semi-flexible polymers in that they can bend by a sizeable amount. When integrating a nanotube in a mechanical resonator, the bending is expected to break the symmetry of the restoring potential. Here we report on a new…
The crazing behavior of polymer nanocomposites formed by blending polymer grafted nanoparticles with an entangled polymer melt is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We focus on the three key differences in the crazing behavior of a…
Nanocomposites comprised of insulated magnetic single-domain particles are promising candidates for high-frequency, eddy current free, soft magnetic materials, but tend to suffer from low magnetic susceptibility ($<20$). Particle alignment…
Nanoparticles can influence the properties of polymer materials by a variety of mechanisms. With fullerene, carbon nanotube, and clay or graphene sheet nanocomposites in mind, we investigate how particle shape influences the melt shear…
We study the influence of spherical, triangular, and rod-like nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of a polymer nanocomposite (PNC), via coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. We focus on how the nanoparticle size, loading,…
A major goal in nanoscience and nanotechnology is the self-assembly of any desired complex structure with a system of particles interacting through simple potentials. To achieve this objective, intense experimental and theoretical efforts…
We present results from particle simulations with isotropic medium range interactions in two dimensions. At low temperature novel types of aggregated structures appear. We show that these structures can be explained by spontaneous symmetry…
Attractive dipole interactions can be induced between equally charged soft nanoparticles under the influence of AC electric fields. The combination of charge repulsion and dipole attraction, along with different screening responses from an…
Nanoparticles with "sticky patches" have long been proposed as building blocks for the self-assembly of complex structures. The synthetic realizability of such patchy particles, however, greatly lags behind predictions of patterns they…
The design space for a self-assembled multicomponent objects ranges from a solution in which every building block is unique to one with the minimum number of distinct building blocks that unambiguously define the target structure. Using a…
Self-assembly in the laboratory can now yield `information-rich' nanostructures in which each component is of a distinct type and has a defined spatial position. Ensuring the thermodynamic stability of such structures requires…
For polymer nanocomposites, disordered microstructural nature makes processing control and tailoring properties to desired values a challenge. Understanding process-structure-property relation can provide guidelines for process and…
Shearing of nanocomposites has shown to produce ordered nanostructures and orientation in the polymeric matrix. Due to the importance of the formation of an ordered structure of nanoparticles in a polymeric matrix to device wearable,…
We have studied structure formation in a confined block copolymer melt by means of dynamic density functional theory (DDFT). The confinement is two-dimensional, and the confined geometry is that of a cylindrical nanopore. Although the…
Polymers are increasingly used in the transport sector due to their many advantages; lightness, corrosion resistance, ease to process... However, most of them have limited mechanical properties. To improve these latter, one of the solutions…
Non-equilibrium transport of particles embedded in a liquid crystal host can, by cooling through a phase transition, be exploited to create a remarkable variety of structures including shells, foams, and gels. Due to the complexity of the…
Studies of nanoparticle-based optical matter have only considered spherical constituents. Yet nanoparticles with other shapes are expected to have different local electromagnetic field distributions and therefore interactions with neighbors…
We experimentally study particle scale dynamics during segregation of a bidisperse mixture under oscillatory shear. Large and small particles show an underlying asymmetry that is dependent on the local particle concentration, with small…
An increasing variety of crystal structures has been observed in soft condensed matter over the past two decades, surpassing most expectations for the diversity of arrangements accessible through classical driving forces. Here, we survey…