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Fatigue refers to the changes in material properties caused by repeatedly applied loads. It has been widely studied for, e.g., construction materials, but much less has been done on soft materials. Here, we characterize the fatigue dynamics…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
We present a theory of active, permeating, polar gels, based on a two-fluid model. An active relative force between the gel components creates a steady-state current. We analyze its stability, while considering two polar coupling terms to…
We study elasticity of spontaneously orientationally-ordered amorphous solids, characterized by a vanishing transverse shear modulus, as realized for example by nematic elastomers and gels. We show that local heterogeneities and elastic…
Although buckling is a prime route to achieve functionalization and synthesis of single colloids, buckling of colloidal structures---made up of multiple colloids---remains poorly studied. Here, we investigate the buckling of the simplest…
By means of Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the gel formation of randomly functionalized polymers in solution, with the ability to form both intra- and intermolecular reversible bonds. Under highly dilute conditions, these…
We present experiments and simulations on cyclically sheared colloidal gels, and probe their behaviour on several different length scales. The shearing induces structural changes in the experimental gel, changing particles' neighborhoods…
Colloidal model systems allow studying crystallization kinetics under fairly ideal conditions with rather well characterized pair interactions and minimized external influences. In complementary approaches therefore experiment, analytic…
The elastic coupling between plastic events is generally invoked to interpret plastic properties and failure of amorphous soft glassy materials. We report an experiment where the emergence of a self-organized plastic flow is observed well…
An adhesively stressed thin film of a soft hydrogel confined between two rigid flat substrates auto-roughens with its dominant wavelength exhibiting pronounced dependence on the film thickness (H). A linear stability analysis confirmed that…
Ferrogels, i.e., hydrogels loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, have the ability to deform in external magnetic fields. The precise shape of deformation and the alignment of the gel in the field, however, depend on the interplay of several…
Active systems of self-rotating elements inherently exhibit chirality, making them of fundamental interest due to parity violation. Using large-scale hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate the gelation of adhesive spinners confined to…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
Percolation theory and the associated conductance networks have provided deep insights into the flow and transport properties of a vast number of heterogeneous materials and media. In practically all cases, however, the conductance of the…
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
Using laser tweezers and fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, we study colloidal interactions of solid microspheres in the nematic bulk caused by elastic distortions around the particles with strong tangential surface anchoring. The…
A liquid droplet resting on a soft gel substrate can deform that substrate to the point of material failure, whereby fractures develop on the gel surface that propagate outwards from the contact-line in a starburst pattern. In this paper,…
Colloidal gels are prime examples of functional materials exhibiting disordered, amorphous, yet meta-stable forms. They maintain stability through short-range attractive forces and their material properties are tunable by external forces.…
We study the sedimentation of colloidal gels by using a combination of light scattering, polarimetry and video imaging. The asymptotic concentration profiles $\varphi(z,t\rightarrow \infty)$ exhibit remarkable scaling properties: profiles…
We introduce a correlated static model and investigate a percolation transition. The model is a modification of the static model and is characterized by assortative degree-degree correlation. As one varies the edge density, the network…