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Molecular simulations provide an effective route for investigating morphology evolution and structure-property relationship in polymer-clay nanocomposites (PCNCs) incorporating layered silicates like montmorillonite (MMT), an important…
The critical incompatibility of polymers with different compositions scales inversely with their length. For instance, a mixture of A and B homopolymers of length $N$ segregates at $\chi_{AB}^{cr} = 2/N$. But what if the difference between…
Mesoscopic structure of the periodically alternating layers of stretched homopolymer chains surrounded by perpendicularly oriented oligomeric tails is studied for the systems with both strong (ionic) and weak (hydrogen) interactions. We…
Polymer nanoparticle composites (PNC) with ultra high loading of nanoparticles (> 50%) have been shown to exhibit markedly improved strength, stiffness, and toughness simultaneously compared to the neat systems of their components. Recent…
NPs are ultrafine-grain crystal or amorphous substances which are as small as 100nm. They have unique physical, chemical and mechanical properties, which are very different from those of large scale materials. This uniqueness is attributed…
Trapping macromolecules in nanopits finds multifarious applications in polymer separation, filtering biomolecules etc. However, tuning the locomotion of polymers in channels of nanoscopic dimensions is greatly restricted by the comparative…
Field-theoretical method is efficient in predicting the assembling structures of polymeric systems. However, for the polymer/nanoparticle mixture, the continuous density description is not suitable to capture the realistic assembly of…
We investigate the dynamics of nanoparticles in semidilute polymer solutions when the nanoparticles are comparably sized to the polymer coils using explicit- and implicit-solvent simulation methods. The nanoparticle dynamics are…
The generation of nanoscale square and stripe patterns is of major technological importance since they are compatible with industry-standard electronic circuitry. Recently, a blend of diblock copolymer interacting via hydrogen-bonding was…
The emergence of macroscopic order and patterns is a central paradigm in systems of (self-)propelled agents, and a key component in the structuring of many biological systems.The relationships between the ordering process and the underlying…
We present simulations on a binary blend of bead-spring polymer chains. The introduction of monomer size disparity yields very different relaxation times for each component of the blend. Competition between two different arrest mechanisms,…
The self-assembly of polymer grafted nanoparticles is more and more used in the field of functional materials. However, there is still a lack of analysis on the dynamic transformation paths of different self-assembly morphologies, which…
Theories of phase change and self-assembly often invoke the idea of a `quasiequilibrium', a regime in which the nonequilibrium association of building blocks results nonetheless in a structure whose properties are determined solely by an…
Fundamental understanding of macroscopic properties of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) remains difficult due to the complex interplay of microscopic dynamics and structure, namely interfacial layer relaxations and three-dimensional…
Solution-phase bottom up self-assembly of nanocrystals into superstructures such as ordered superlattices is an attractive strategy to generate functional materials of increasing complexity, including very recent advances that incorporate…
We study the dynamics of a suspension of magnetic nanoparticles. Their relaxation times are strongly size-dependent. The dominant mode of relaxation is also governed by the size of the particles. As a result the dynamics is greatly altered…
Bimetallic nanoparticles (BNPs) exhibit diverse morphologies such as core-shell, Janus, onion-like, quasi-Janus, and homogeneous structures. Although extensive effort has been directed towards understanding the equilibrium configurations of…
The magnetic-field-induced assembly of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) provides a unique and flexible strategy in the design and the fabrication of functional nanostructures and devices. We have investigated the field-driven self-assembly of…
A new method based on the combination of small-anglescattering, reverse Monte Carlo simulations, and an aggregate recognition algorithm is proposed to characterize the structure of nanoparticle suspensions in solvents and polymer…
DNA is an ideal candidate to organize matter on the nanoscale, primarily due to the specificity and complexity of DNA based interactions. Recent advances in this direction include the self-assembly of colloidal crystals using DNA grafted…