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A common feature of biological self-organization is how active agents communicate with each other or their environment via chemical signaling. Such communications, mediated by self-generated chemical gradients, have consequences for both…
We study a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to investigate its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a…
The dynamical arrest of gels is the consequence of a well defined structural phase transition, leading to the formation of a spanning cluster of bonded particles. The dynamical glass transition, instead, is not accompanied by any clear…
Hydrogel diffusiophoresis is the deformation of a hydrogel due to a solute gradient that leads to a gradient of pairwise interactions between the solute particles and the hydrogel polymers to trigger osmotic flux. Unlike typical osmosis, it…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
We study the structure and the dynamics in the formation of irreversible gels by means of molecular dynamics simulation of a model system where the gelation transition is due to the random percolation of permanent bonds between neighboring…
We introduce a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to study its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a…
Colloidal particles with strong, short-ranged attractions can form a gel. We simulate this process without and with hydrodynamic interactions (HI), using the lattice-Boltzmann method to account for presence of a thermalized solvent. We show…
Polyelectrolyte (PE) hydrogels can dynamically respond to external stimuli, such as changes in pH and temperature, which benefits their use for smart materials and nanodevices with tunable properties. We investigate equilibrium…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Chemically-responsive polymers are macromolecules that respond to local variations of the chemical composition of the solution by changing their conformation, with notable examples including polyelectrolytes, proteins and DNA. The polymer…
We present a theoretical study on pattern formation occurring in miscible fluids reacting by a second-order reaction $A + B \to S$ in a vertical Hele-Shaw cell under constant gravity. We have recently reported that concentration-dependent…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
Hydrodynamic synchronization provides a general mechanism for the spontaneous emergence of coherent beating states in independently driven mesoscopic oscillators. A complete physical picture of those phenomena is of definite importance to…
Colloidal gels are elasto-plastic materials composed of an out-of-equilibrium, self-assembled network of micron-sized (solid) particles suspended in a fluid. Recent work has shown that far-field hydrodynamic interactions do not change gel…
Deformed droplets are ubiquitous in various industrial applications, such as inkjet printing, lab-on-a-chip devices, and spray cooling, and can fundamentally affect the involved applications both favorably and unfavorably. Here, we employ…
A rigid cylinder placed on a soft gel deforms its surface. When multiple cylinders are placed on the surface, they interact with each other via the topography of the deformed gel which serves as an energy landscape; as they move, the…
The design of hydrogels that combine mechanical robustness with dynamic reconfigurability remains a fundamental challenge, as increasing crosslink dissociation rates compromise network integrity. This limitation is addressed through the…
Colloidal gel networks are disordered elastic solids that can form even in extremely dilute particle suspensions. With interaction strengths comparable to the thermal energy, their stress-bearing network can locally restructure via breaking…
Inspired by the observation of intricate and beautifully dynamic patterns generated by food coloring on clean glass slides, we have investigated the behavior of propylene glycol and water droplets on high energy surfaces. In this fluid…