Related papers: Probing microscopic dynamics in a uni-axially stra…
We study the elasticity of fibrous materials composed of generalized stiff polymers. It is shown that in contrast to cellular foam-like structures affine strain fields are generically unstable. Instead, a subtle interplay between the…
Single-filament tracing has been a valuable tool to directly determine geometrical and mechanical properties of entangled polymer networks. However, systematically verifying how the stiffness of the tracer filament or its molecular…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While traditional entropic network models can be fit to the total stress, their underlying assumptions are inconsistent with simulation results.…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
We present a theoretical framework for the linear and nonlinear visco-elastic properties of reversibly crosslinked networks of semiflexible polymers. In contrast to affine models where network strain couples to the polymer end-to-end…
Understanding and interpreting dynamics of functional materials \textit{in situ} is a grand challenge in physics and materials science due to the difficulty of experimentally probing materials at varied length and time scales. X-ray photon…
Understanding solution-phase aggregation and dynamics in complex fluids is critical for material processing, yet widely used dynamic light scattering (DLS) fails for strongly attenuating systems such as conjugated polymers. We use X-ray…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
As a granular material is compressed, the particles and forces within the system arrange to form complex heterogeneous structures. Force chains are a prime example and are thought to constrain bulk properties such as mechanical stability…
We study the mechanical stiffening behavior in two-dimensional (2D) cross-linked networks of semiflexible biopolymer filaments under simple shear. Filamental constituents immersed in a fluid undergo thermally excited bending motions.…
The validity of the affine assumption in model flexible polymer networks is explored. To this end, the displacements of fluorescent tracer beads embedded in polyacrylamide gels are quantified by confocal microscopy under shear deformation,…
For various engineering and industrial applications it is desirable to realize mechanical systems with broadly adjustable elasticity to respond flexibly to the external environment. Here we discover a topology-correlated transition between…
The non-equilibrium structural and dynamical properties of a flexible polymer tethered to a reflecting wall and subject to oscillatory linear flow are studied by numerical simulations. Polymer is confined in two dimensions and is modeled as…
We analyze the response of molecular adhesion complexes to increasing pulling forces (dynamic force spectroscopy) when dissociation can occur along either one of two alternative trajectories in the underlying multidimensional energy…
Active dynamic processes of cells are largely driven by the cytoskeleton, a complex and adaptable semiflexible polymer network, motorized by mechanoenzymes. Small dimensions, confined geome- tries and hierarchical structures make it…
The adsorption of polymer and surfactant molecules onto colloidal particles or droplets in solution can be characterized non-destructively by scattering techniques. In a first part, the general framework of Dynamic Light Scattering, Small…
Multiple polymer networks, such as double-network elastomers comprising a sacrificial and a matrix network, exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, commonly attributed to the formation of an extended damage zone before a crack can grow.…
Optical tweezers microrheology (OTM) offers a powerful approach to probe the nonlinear response of complex soft matter systems, such as networks of entangled polymers, over wide-ranging spatiotemporal scales. OTM can also uniquely…
Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMSs) are emerging nanoscale elements at the crossroads between mechanics, optics and electronics, with significant potential for actuation and sensing applications. The reduction of dimensions compared to…
We investigate the static and dynamic properties of dendrimers diffusing through a network of linear associative polymers using coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations. Both dendrimers and network chains are modelled as bead-spring…