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The properties of a semiflexible polymer with fixed ends exposed to oscillatory shear flow are investigated by simulations. The two-dimensionally confined polymer is modeled as a linear bead-spring chain, and the interaction with the fluid…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a stimuli-responsive material which has been intensively studied for applications including artificial muscles, shape morphing structures, and soft robotics, due to its capability of large, programmable,…
Polymer fibers are currently exploited in tremendously important technologies. Their innovative properties are mainly determined by the behavior of the polymer macromolecules under the elongation induced by external mechanical or…
Metafibers expand the functionalities of conventional optical fibers to unprecedented nanoscale light manipulations by integrating metasurfaces on the fiber tips, becoming an emerging light-coupling platform for both nanoscience and fiber…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
The development of smart polymer materials is reviewed and illustrated. Important examples of these polymers include conducting polymers, ionic gels, stimulus-response be used polymers, liquid crystalline polymers and piezoelectric…
High-aspect-ratio polymer materials are widely utilized in applications ranging from everyday materials such as clothing to specialized equipment in industrial and medical fields. Traditional fabrication methods, such as extrusion and…
The properties of semiflexible polymers tethered by one end to an impenetrable wall and exposed to oscillatory shear flow are investigated by mesoscale simulations. A polymer, confined in two dimensions, is described by a linear bead-spring…
From understanding the sand on the beach to the foam on your beer, soft sphere simulations have been crucial to the study of the amorphous world around us. However, many of the materials we interact with on a daily basis aren't comprised of…
Herein, we describe new methods to produce colloidal particle chains of three stiffness regimes that can be observed on a single-particle level, that is, on the level of the monomers that make up the chain; the chains can even be observed…
Electrospinning technologies for the realization of active polymeric nanomaterials can be easily up-scaled, opening perspectives to industrial exploitation, and due to their versatility they can be employed to finely tailor the size,…
Polymer composites are ideal candidates for next generation biomimetic soft materials because of their exquisite bottom-up designability. However, the richness of behaviours comes at a price: the need for precise and extensive…
Robotics and automation are key enablers to increase throughput in ongoing conservation efforts across various threatened ecosystems. Cataloguing, digitisation, husbandry, and similar activities require the ability to interact with…
By mixing glass beads with a curable polymer we create a well-defined cohesive granular medium, held together by solidified, and hence elastic, capillary bridges. This material has a geometry similar to a wet packing of beads, but with an…
Photomechanical actuation is demonstrated in two coupled liquid crystal elastomer photomechanical optical devices (PODs) acting in series. The response function of an individual POD is characterized and used to predict the temporal response…
Multifunctional lattice materials are of great interest to modern engineering including aerospace, robotics, wave control, and sensing. In this work, we proposed and developed a new class of functional lattice materials called liquid metal…
The plasmodium of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum has recently received significant attention for its value as a highly malleable amorphous computing substrate. In laboratory-based experiments, micro- and nanoscale artificial circuit…
The stretchability of polymeric materials is critical to many applications such as stretchable electronics and soft robotics, yet the stretchability of conventional cross-linked linear polymers is limited by the entanglements between…
Hy brid composites obtained upon blending conjugated polymers and colloidal inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals are regarded as attractive photo-active materials for optoelectronic applications. Here we demonstrate that tailoring…