Related papers: Liquid Crystals as Multifunctional Interfaces for …
We have developed a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic chip to study the directional drying of a colloidal dispersion confined in a channel. Our measurements on a dispersion of silica nanoparticles once again revealed the…
We present a physics based multiscale materials-to-systems model for polycrystalline $PbSe$ photodetectors that connects fundamental material properties to circuit level performance metrics. From experimentally observed film structures and…
Many soft-matter and biophysical systems are composed of monomers which reversibly assemble into rod-like aggregates. The aggregates can then order into liquid-crystal phases if the density is high enough, and liquid-crystal ordering…
In experimental systems, colloidal particles are virtually always at least somewhat polydisperse, which can have profound effects on their ability to crystallize. Unfortunately, accurately predicting the effects of polydispersity on phase…
Nano- and microplastics are a growing threat for the environment, especially in aqueous habitats. For assessing the influence on the ecosystem and possible solution strategies, it is necessary to investigate the fate of microplastics (MP)…
Elastomeric pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) form adhesive bonds under light pressure. Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are exciting PSA candidates as they can impart both anisotropy and temperature-dependence to adhesion, but the full…
Patterning solid surfaces with varying wettability is important to manage droplets in microfluidics, heat transfer and printing. Solid surface roughness poses fundamental limitations including contact-line pinning and solid friction. Here,…
The success of the various secondary operations involved in the production of particulate products depends on the production of particles with a desired size and shape from a previous primary operation such as crystallisation. This is…
Understanding polymer adsorption at interfaces is essential for designing advanced polymer-based nanomaterials with tailored interfacial properties. Although adsorption significantly influences the macroscopic properties of polymer…
Capillary interactions have emerged as a tool for the directed assembly of particles adsorbed at fluid-fluid interfaces, and play a role in controlling the mechanical properties of emulsions and foams. In this paper, following Davies et al.…
Slippery covalently attached liquid surfaces (SCALS) are a family of nanothin polymer layers with remarkably low static droplet friction, characterised by a low contact angle hysteresis (CAH$< 5 \deg$), which makes them ideally suited to…
Additives are essential to enhance or modify the properties of plastics for target applications. However, finding appropriate additives may be challenging, since we lack knowledge on their interactions with the plastics and with moisture,…
The forces between colloidal particles at a decane-water interface, in the presence of low concentrations of a monovalent salt (NaCl) and of the surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) in the aqueous subphase, have been studied using laser…
PEP-PEO block copolymer micelles offer the possibility to investigate phase behaviour and interactions of star polymers (ultra-soft colloids). A star-like architecture is achieved by an extremely asymmetric block ratio (1:20). Micellar…
Surfactants have been widely studied and used in controlling droplet evaporation. In this work, we observe and study the crystallization of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) within an evaporating glycerol-water mixture droplet. The…
We consider a theoretical model for a binary mixture of colloidal particles and spherical emulsion droplets. The hard sphere colloids interact via additional short-ranged attraction and long-ranged repulsion. The droplet-colloid interaction…
When polyelectrolyte-neutral block copolymers are mixed in solutions to oppositely charged species (e.g. surfactant micelles, macromolecules, proteins etc), there is the formation of stable supermicellar aggregates combining both…
The mechanical properties of crystalline materials can be substantially modified under confinement. Such modified macroscopic properties are usually governed by the altered microstructures and internal stress fields. Here, we use a parallel…
The complex physics of self-assembly in colloidal crystals on deformable interfaces and surfaces poses interesting possibilities for the designability and synthesis of next-generation metamaterials. The goal of this article is to…
The observation of Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation (LLPS) in biological cells has dramatically shifted the paradigm that soluble proteins are uniformly dispersed in the cytoplasm or nucleoplasm. The LLPS region is preceded by a one-phase…