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The interstellar medium is characterised by an intricate filamentary network which exhibits complex structures. These show a variety of different shapes (e.g. junctions, rings, etc.) deviating strongly from the usually assumed cylindrical…
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,…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…
Macromolecules can form regular structures on inert surfaces. We have developed a combined empirical and modeling approach to derive the bonding. From experimental scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images of structures formed on Au(111)…
Many critical biological processes, like wound healing, require confluent cell monolayers/bulk tissues to transition from a jammed solid-like to a fluid-like state. Although numerical studies anticipate changes in the cell shape alone can…
The bending rigidity $k_c$ of bilayer vesicles self-assembled from amphiphilic diblock copolymers has been measured using single and dual-micropipet techniques. These copolymers are nearly a factor of 5 greater in hydrophobic membrane…
Atomically thin moir\'e materials behave like elastic membranes where at very small twist angles, the van der Waals adhesion energy much exceeds the strain energy. In this ``marginal twist" regime, regions with low adhesion energy expand,…
The statistical mechanics of polymer loops entangled in the two-dimensional array of randomly distributed obstacles of infinite length is discussed. The area of the loop projected to the plane perpendicular to the obstacles is used as a…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Self-assembled monolayers of microparticles encoding Archimedean and non-regular tessellations promise unprecedented structure-property relationships for a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from optoelectronics to surface…
Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…
Biological and biomimetic membranes often contain aggregates of embedded or adsorbed macromolecules. In this article, the indirect interactions of cylindrical objects adhering to a planar membrane are considered theoretically. The adhesion…
Living tissues show an extraordinary adaptiveness to strain, which is crucial for their proper biological functioning. The physical origin of this mechanical behaviour has been widely investigated using reconstituted networks of collagen…
By means of sophisticated Monte Carlo methods, we investigate the conformational phase diagram of a simple model for flexible polymers with explicit thickness. The thickness constraint, which is introduced geometrically via the global…
The interplay of membrane proteins is vital for many biological processes, such as cellular transport, cell division, and signal transduction between nerve cells. Theoretical considerations have led to the idea that the membrane itself…
The tube model is a central concept in polymer physics, and allows to reduce the complex many-filament problem of an entangled polymer solution to a single filament description. We investigate the probability distribution function of…
We study the mechanical and conformational properties of networks of helical polymers with a combination of Monte Carlo simulations based on the Wang-Landau algorithm and the Three-chain Model. We find that the stress-strain behavior of…
Topological mechanical metamaterials have enabled new ways to control stress and deformation propagation. Exemplified by Maxwell lattices, they have been studied extensively using a linearized formalism. Herein, we study a two-dimensional…
We study equilibrium shapes and shape transformations of a confined semiflexible chain inside a soft lipid tubule using simulations and continuum theories. The deformed tubular shapes and chain conformations depend on the relative magnitude…
We propose a two-body spherically symmetric (isotropic) potential such that particles interacting by the potential self assemble into linear semiflexible polymeric chains without branching. By suitable control of the potential parameters we…