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Polymer topology, which plays a principal role in the rheology of polymeric fluids, and non-equilibrium materials, which exhibit time-varying rheological properties, are topics of intense investigation. Here, we push composites of circular…
Topological mechanics can realize soft modes in mechanical metamaterials in which the number of degrees of freedom for particle motion is finely balanced by the constraints provided by interparticle interactions. However, solid objects are…
Unconcatenated, unknotted polymer rings in the melt are subject to strong interactions with neighboring chains due to the presence of topological constraints. We study this by computer simulation using the bond-fluctuation algorithm for…
Biopolymer looping is a dynamic process that occurs ubiquitously in cells for gene regulation, protein folding, etc. In cellular environments, biopolymers are often subject to tensions which are either static, or temporally fluctuating far…
During the life cycle of bacterial cells the non-mixing of the two ring-shaped daughter genomes is an important prerequisite for the cell division process. Mimicking the environments inside highly crowded biological cells, we study the…
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…
The bond fluctuation method is used to simulate both non-concatenated entangled and interpenetrating melts of ring polymers. We find that the swelling of interpenetrating rings upon dilution follows the same laws as for linear chains.…
Entangled knots form spontaneously in flexible filaments, yet the influence of the surrounding environment on this process is poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that free-moving particles act as kinetic catalysts for spontaneous…
Reduction of information entropy along with ever-increasing complexity are among the key signatures of living matter. Understanding the onset of such behavior in early prebiotic world is essential for solving the problem of origins of life.…
At the heart of systems chemistry lies the idea that supramolecular interactions can give rise to complex and unexpected collective states that emerge on a fundamentally different lengthscale to that of the interactions themselves. While in…
Precise control over the flow behavior of liquids is a critical problem and is demanding for multifaceted applications. Introducing surface-engineered nanoparticles into the liquid can tune the flow behavior. However, the extent of…
The torsional elasticity of semiflexible polymers like DNA is of biological significance. A mathematical treatment of this problem was begun by Fuller using the relation between link, twist and writhe, but progress has been hindered by the…
We consider the folding of a self-avoiding homopolymer on a lattice, with saturating hydrogen bond interactions. Our goal is to numerically evaluate the statistical distribution of the topological genus of pseudoknotted configurations. The…
Plasmonic excitations behave fundamentally different in layered materials in comparison to bulk systems. They form gapless modes, which in turn couple at low energies to the electrons. Thereby they can strongly influence superconducting…
Twisted and coiled polymer actuators (TCPAs) generate large contractile mechanical work mimicking natural muscles, which makes them suitable for robotics and health-assistive devices. Understanding the mechanism of nylon TCPA remains…
We study the segregation of motile semiflexible filaments from a background of similar but non-motile filaments. Our Langevin dynamics simulations reveal a wide range of emergent structures governed by filament flexibility and activity,…
Free surfaces in glassy polymer films are known to induce surface mobile layers with enhanced dynamics. Using molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model, we study a wide variety of layer-resolved structural and dynamical…
Semiflexible polymers form central structures in biological material. Modeling approaches usually neglect influences of polymer-specific molecular features aiming to describe semiflexible polymers universally. Here, we investigate the…
Colloids dispersed in nematic liquid crystals form topological composites in which colloid-associated defects mediate interactions while adhering to fundamental topological constraints. Better realising the promise of such materials…
Semiflexible polymers are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems, where their intermediate rigidity gives rise to rich structural and dynamical behavior. Confinement plays a central role in these behaviors, as spatial restrictions can…