Related papers: Smart copolymer microgels with high volume phase t…
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…
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…
We present the design, fabrication and discuss the performance of a new combined high-resolution Scanning Tunneling and thermopower Microscope (STM/SThEM). We also describe the development of the electronic control, the user interface, the…
Plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) integrated within thermoresponsive polymeric microgels provide a versatile platform for the realization of stimuli-responsive optical materials, where the microgel volume phase transition enables dynamic…
We investigated the surface structure of hydrogels of poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) hydrogels synthesized and cross-linked simultaneously by redox free radical polymerization. We demonstrate the existence of a less cross-linked layer…
Polymer blends offer an exciting material for various potential applications due to their tunable properties by varying constituting components and their relative composition. Our simulation results unravel an intrinsic relationship between…
We investigate the structural and topological properties of hydrophobic homopolymer chains in aqueous solutions using molecular dynamics simulations and circuit topology (CT) analysis. By combining geometric observables, such as radius of…
Microgels, cross-linked polymers with submicrometer size, are ideal soft model systems. While spherical microgels have been studied extensively, anisotropic microgels have been hardly investigated. In this study, we compare the interfacial…
Employing small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), we explore the conditions under which the assembly of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) grafted with the thermo-sensitive polymer Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) emerges. We find that short-range…
The hydrogen-bonding interpolymer complexation between poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and the poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMAM) side chains of the negatively charged graft copolymer poly(acrylic acid-co-2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propane sulfonic…
The interparticle interactions in a magnetic nanocomposite play a dominant role in controlling the phase transitions superparamagnetic to superspinglass to superferromagnetic. These interactions can be tuned by controlling the size and…
Graphene-based nanostructured systems and van-der-Waals heterostructures comprise a material class of growing technological and scientific importance. Joining materials with vastly different properties, polymer-graphene heterosystems…
Nanoplatelets open up a wide range of possibilities for building materials with novel properties linked to their shape anisotropy. A challenge consists of controlling dynamically the order of positioning and orientation in three dimensions…
It is well known that poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) exhibits an interesting, yet puzzling, phenomenon of co-non-solvency. Co-non-solvency occurs when two competing good solvents for PNIPAm, such as water and alcohol, are mixed…
One of the standard composite insulation systems for cryogenic applications consists of a layer of hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) followed by a layer of variable density multilayer insulation (VDMLI) comprised of various internal…
We experimentally study the pairwise interactions between poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) microgel particles using line optical tweezers. To measure their interaction potentials under controlled conditions, we trap two microgel…
Micelles and vesicles are promising candidates in targeted drug/gene delivery, bioreactors, and templates for nanoparticle synthesis. We investigated the morphology and dynamics of PEG-PDMS-PEG triblock copolymer nano-scale assemblies…
We present the design, fabrication, and response of a low-power, polymer-based VOC sensor based on the self-leveling of mechanically leveraged structures. The device utilizes folded polymer-coated microcantilevers to achieve passive…
We studied a system formed by a mixture of a thermoresponsive negatively charged graft copolymer (Alg-g-PNIPAAm) with a brush-type structure, and an oppositely charged surfactant (DTAB), in bulk and at the air-solution interface. We…
Thermoresponsive hydrogels exhibit reversible deswelling at the Volume Phase Transition (VPT), associated to a minimum of the Poisson's ratio $\nu$. Recent numerical investigations uncovered the occurrence of a Hyper-Auxetic Transition…