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Polymer-grafted nanoparticles (PGNPs) can provide property profiles than cannot be obtained individually by polymers or nanoparticles (NPs). Here, we have studied the mixing--demixing transition of symmetric copolymer melts of…
We study the interplay between entropy and topological constraints for a polymer chain in which sliding rings (slip-links) enforce pair contacts between monomers. These slip-links divide a closed ring polymer into a number of sub-loops…
Controlled breakdown has recently emerged as a highly accessible technique to fabricate solid-state nanopores. However, in its most common form, controlled breakdown creates a single nanopore at an arbitrary location in the membrane. Here,…
We present a self-consistent field theory (SCFT) of semiflexible (wormlike) diblock copolymers, each consisting of a rigid and a flexible part. The segments of the polymers are otherwise identical, in particular with regard to their…
Efforts aimed at large-scale integration of nanoelectronic devices that exploit the superior electronic and mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) remain limited by the difficulties associated with manipulation and…
Block copolymers often create droplets when placed on a substrate. Such nanostructured droplets can be arranged into regular microstructured arrays, thereby forming hierarchically organized materials that can be used in microelectronics,…
We investigate the conformation, position, and dynamics of core-shell nanoparticles (CSNPs) composed of a silica core encapsulated in a cross-linked poly-N-isopropylacrylamide shell at a water-oil interface for a systematic range of core…
The organization of nano-particles inside grafted polymer layers is governed by the interplay of polymer-induced entropic interactions and the action of externally applied fields. Earlier work had shown that strong external forces can drive…
Patchy particles are a popular paradigm for the design and synthesis of nanoparticles and colloids for self-assembly. In "traditional" patchy particles, anisotropic interactions arising from patterned coatings, functionalized molecules,…
Grafting linkers with open ends of complementary single-stranded DNA makes a flexible tool to tune interactions between colloids,which facilitates the design of complex self-assembly structures. Recently, it has been proposed to coat…
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…
Colloids coated with single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) can bind selectively to other colloids coated with complementary ssDNA. The fact that DNA-coated colloids (DNACCs) can bind to specific partners opens the prospect of making colloidal…
Nanocomposite films containing a high volume fraction (> 50vol%) of nanoparticles (NPs) in a polymer matrix are promising for their functionality and use as structural coatings, and also provide a unique platform to understand polymer…
The mechanics of complex soft matter often cannot be understood in the classical physical frame of flexible polymers or rigid rods. The underlying constituents are semiflexible polymers, whose finite bending stiffness ($\kappa$) leads to…
We focus on polymer-grafted nanoparticles (PGNP). A PGNP is composed of two different layers: the hard core of a nanoparticle and the soft corona of grafted polymers on the surface. It is predicted that PGNPs with these two distinct layers…
Supercrystalline nanocomposites (SCNCs) are inorganic-organic hybrid materials with a unique periodic nanostructure, and as such they have been gaining growing attention for their intriguing functional properties and parallelisms with…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
Learning from nature's amazing molecular machines, globular proteins, we present a framework for the predictive design of nano-machines. We show that the crucial ingredients for a chain molecule to behave as a machine are its inherent…
We use Brownian dynamics simulations and advanced topological profiling methods to characterize the out-of-equilibrium evolution of self-entanglement in linear polymers confined into nano-channels and under periodic compression. We…
Using a combination of the replica-exchange Monte Carlo algorithm and the multicanonical method, we investigate the influence of bending stiffness on the conformational phases of a bead-stick homopolymer model and present the pseudo-phase…