Related papers: Packing, Phase Separation and Interface Compatibil…
The properties of the interface in a phase-separated solution of polymers with different degrees of polymerization and Kuhn segment lengths are calculated. The starting point is the planar interface, the profile of which is calculated in…
By means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the bond fluctuation model, we study the effect of adding AB diblock copolymers on the properties of an interface between demixed homopolymer phases. The parameters are chosen such that the…
Metamaterials benefit from unique architected patterns to achieve lightweight with exceptional mechanical properties inaccessible to conventional materials. Typical mechanical metamaterials are inspired by crystal-like lattice structures,…
Microgels made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) are the prototype of soft, thermoresponsive particles widely used to study fundamental problems in condensed matter physics. However, their internal structure is far from homogeneous, and…
Equilibration of polymer melts containing highly entangled long polymer chains in confinement or with free surfaces is a challenge for computer simulations. We approach this problem by first studying polymer melts based on the soft-sphere…
Reactions at a strongly segregated interface of a symmetric binary polymer blend are investigated via Monte Carlo simulations. End functionalized homopolymers of different species interact at the interface instantaneously and irreversibly…
We consider a lattice model of a mixture of repulsive, attractive, or neutral monodisperse star (species A) and linear (species B) polymers with a third monomeric species C, which may represent free volume. The mixture is next to a hard,…
Mechanically bonded membranes of interlocked ring polymers are a significant generalization of conventional elastic sheets, where connectivity is provided by covalent bonding, and represent a promising class of topological meta-materials.…
The measurement of interfacial mechanical or rheological properties in polymer blends is a challenging task, as well as providing a quantitative link between these properties and the interfacial nanostructure. Here, we perform a systematic…
Nature is remarkably adept at using interfaces to build structures, encapsulate reagents, and regulate biological processes. Inspired by Nature, we describe flexible polymer-based ribbons, termed "mesoscale polymers" (MSPs), to modulate…
Using a lattice model and a versatile thermodynamic integration scheme, we study the critical Casimir interactions between inclusions embedded in a two-dimensional critical binary mixtures. For single-domain inclusions we demonstrate that…
The structure of polymer coils near interfaces between coexisting phases of symmetrical polymer mixtures (AB) is discussed, as well as the structure of symmetric diblock copolymers of the same chain length N adsorbed at the interface. The…
Reducing the complexity of cross-linked polymer networks by preserving their main macroscale properties, is key to understanding them, and a crucial issue is to relate individual properties of the polymer constituents to those of the…
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…
Powdered materials of sizes ranging from nanometers to microns are widely used in materials science and are carefully selected to enhance the performance of a matrix. Fillers have been used in order to improve, among the others, mechanical,…
Collapse of the polymer chain upon the sharp decrease of solvent quality is studied. During collapse, any pair of polymer units appearing in a sufficiently close vicinity in space has the possibility with a certain probability to form an…
The coupled dynamics of entangled polymers which span a broad time and length scales govern the unique viscoelastic properties of polymers. To follow chain mobility by numerical simulations from the intermediate Rouse and reptation regimes…
Interface cracking is one of the most prominent failure modes in fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. Recent trends in high-tech applications of FRP composites exploit the limits of the load bearing capacity, generally encompassing…
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…
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…