Related papers: How Soft is Too Soft? Tuning Order and Disorder in…
We introduce a novel coarse-grained bead-spring model for flexible polymers to systematically examine the effects of an adjusted bonded potential on the formation and stability of structural macrostates in a thermal environment. The density…
Spherical confinement can act either stabilizing or destabilizing on the collapsed state of a semi-flexible polymer. General free-energy arguments suggest that the order of the unconstrained collapse transition is the distinguishing factor:…
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,…
Soft, amorphous solids such as tissues, foams, and emulsions are composed of deformable particles. However, the effect of single-particle deformability on the collective behavior of soft solids is still poorly understood. We perform…
Self-assembly in natural and synthetic molecular systems can create complex aggregates or materials whose properties and functionality rises from their internal structure and molecular arrangement. The key microscopic features that control…
The yet virtually unexplored class of soft colloidal rods with small aspect ratio is investigated and shown to exhibit a very rich phase and dynamic behavior, spanning from liquid to nearly melt state. Instead of nematic order, these short…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
A self-interacting polymer can undergo an orientational ordering transition, depending on the magnitude of the nematic interaction. The effect of embedding such a polymer into a flexible surface on this transition is studied on the…
The results obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of the friction at an interface between polymer melts and weakly attractive crystalline surfaces are reported. We consider a coarse-grained bead-spring model of linear chains with…
The phase behavior of symmetric diblock copolymers under three-dimensional (3D) soft confinement is investigated using the self-consistent field theory. The soft confinement is realized in binary blends composed AB diblock copolymers and C…
Colloidal crystals with a diamond and pyrochlore structure display wide photonic band gaps at low refractive index contrasts. However, these low-coordinated and open structures are notoriously difficult to self-assemble from colloids…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
The relationship between interactions, flexibility and disorder in proteins has been explored from many angles: folding upon binding, flexibility of the core relative to the periphery, entropy changes, etc. In this work, we provide…
Confinement can have a dramatic effect on the behavior of all sorts of particulate systems and it therefore is an important phenomenon in many different areas of physics and technology. Here, we investigate the role played by the softness…
Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method, we study the quantum coherence in one-dimensional disordered Fermi systems. We consider in detail spinless fermions on a ring, and compare the influence of several kinds of…
Soft composite solids, comprising discrete inclusions embedded within a compliant matrix, are emerging candidates for engineering synthetic tissues and soft robotic materials. Current strategies for controlling their nonlinear mechanics,…
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…
We report Monte Carlo results for the fluid structure of a system of dimeric particles interacting via a core-softened potential. More specifically, dimers interact through a repulsive pair potential of inverse-power form, modified in such…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
Finite coherent quantum systems exhibit a nontrivial response to local sources of phase curvature, which cannot be reduced to conventional forces, disorder-induced localization, or simple gap opening. Here we show that, in finite fermionic…