Related papers: Star-like microgels vs star polymers: similarities…
Understanding the dynamics of soft colloids, such as star polymers, dendrimers, and microgels, is of scientific and practical importance. It is known that the excluded volume effect plays a key role in colloidal dynamics. Here, we propose a…
We provide experimental and numerical evidence of a new class of soft nanocolloids: star-like microgels with thermoresponsive character. This is achieved by using the standard precipitation polymerization synthesis of…
Using monomer-resolved Molecular Dynamics simulations and theoretical arguments based on the radial dependence of the osmotic pressure in the interior of a star, we systematically investigate the effective interactions between hard,…
PEP-PEO block copolymer micelles offer the possibility to investigate phase behaviour and interactions of star polymers (ultra-soft colloids). A star-like architecture is achieved by an extremely asymmetric block ratio (1:20). Micellar…
The distance-resolved effective interaction between two star polymers in a good solvent is calculated by Molecular Dynamics computer simulations. The results are compared with a pair potential proposed recently by Likos et al. [Phys. Rev.…
Thermoresponsive microgels are soft colloids that find widespread use as model systems for soft matter physics. Their complex internal architecture, made of a disordered and heterogeneous polymer network, has been so far a major challenge…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles that, when dispersed in a solvent, swell and deswell in response to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, concentration, and $p$H. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we model bulk…
In this work, we consider a semi-dilute solution of identical star-polymers, made of attached flexible long polymer chains of the same polymerization degree N. We first compute the effective pair-potential between star-polymers. Such a…
The phase diagram of star polymer solutions in a good solvent is obtained over a wide range of densities and arm numbers by Monte Carlo simulations. The effective interaction between the stars is modeled by an ultrasoft pair potential which…
The structural and dynamical properties of ultra-soft colloids - star polymers - exposed to a uniform external force field are analyzed applying the multiparticle collision dynamics approach, a hybrid coarse-grain mesoscale simulation…
Ongoing surveys are in the process of measuring the chemical abundances in large numbers of stars, with the ultimate goal of reconstructing the formation history of the Milky Way using abundances as tracers. However, interpretation of these…
Soft colloids are increasingly used as model systems to address fundamental issues such as crystallisation and the glass and jamming transitions. Among the available classes of soft colloids, microgels are emerging as the gold standard.…
Thermoresponsive microgels find widespread use as colloidal model systems, because their temperature-dependent size allows facile tuning of their volume fraction "in situ". However, an interaction potential unifying their behavior across…
An important open problem in materials science is whether a direct connection exists between single-particle elastic properties and the macroscopic bulk behavior. Here we address this question by focusing on the archetype of soft colloids:…
We compare the spatial distribution of stars which form in hydrodynamical simulations to the spatial distribution of the gas, using the $\mathcal{Q}$-parameter. The $\mathcal{Q}$-parameter enables a self-consistent comparison between the…
In this paper we study the shape characteristics of star-like polymers in various solvent quality using a mesoscopic level of modeling. The dissipative particle dynamics simulations are performed for the homogeneous and four different…
Liquid mixtures composed of colloidal particles and much smaller non-adsorbing linear homopolymers can undergo a gelation transition due to polymer-mediated depletion forces. We now show that the addition of linear polymers to suspensions…
We analyze the structural and dynamical properties of disk-like objects formed in fully consistent cosmological simulations which include inefficient star formation. Comparison with data of similar observable properties of spiral galaxies…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
Star polymers can exhibit a heterogeneous dynamical behavior due to their internal structure. In this work we employ atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to study translational motion in non-entangled polystyrene and poly(ethylene…