Related papers: 3D microprinting anisotropic and deformable active…
During the last decade, additive manufacturing has become increasingly popular for rapid prototyping, but has remained relatively marginal beyond the scope of prototyping when it comes to applications with tight tolerance specifications,…
Deployable structures, essential across various engineering applications ranging from umbrellas to satellites, are evolving to include soft, morphable designs where geometry drives transformation. However, a major challenge for soft…
Microfluidic chips provide unparalleled control over droplets and jets, which have advanced all natural sciences. However, microfluidic applications could be vastly expanded by increasing the per-channel throughput and directly exploiting…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
We propose a predictive model for the mechanical behavior of biodegradable polymers of interest for biomedical applications. Starting from a detailed description of the network behavior of the copolymer material, taking care of bonds…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
In the last 20 years, active matter has been a very successful research field, bridging the fundamental physics of nonequilibrium thermodynamics with applications in robotics, biology, and medicine. This field deals with active particles,…
Accurate physical modeling with 3D-printing techniques could lead to new approaches to study structure and dynamics of biological systems complementing computational methods. Computational biology has become an important part of research…
Recent advances in the preparation, control and measurement of atomic gases have led to new insights into the quantum world and unprecedented metrological sensitivities, e.g. in measuring gravitational forces and magnetic fields. The full…
In simulations, particles are traditionally treated as rigid platforms with variable sizes, shapes and interaction parameters. While this representation is applicable for rigid core platforms, particles consisting of soft platforms (e.g.…
Self-propelled particles in anisotropic environments can exhibit a motility that depends on their orientation. This dependence is relevant for a plethora of living organisms but difficult to study in controlled environments. Here, we…
Theoretical concepts in condensed matter physics are typically verified and also developed by exploiting computer simulations mostly in simple models. Predictions based on these usually isotropic models are often at odds with measurement…
The rapid design and fabrication of soft robotic matter is of growing interest for shape morphing, actuation, and wearable devices. Here, we report a facile fabrication method for creating soft robotic materials with embedded pneumatics…
Photonic components responsive to external optical stimuli are attracting increasing interest, because their properties can be manipulated by light with fast switching times, high spatial definition, and potentially remote control. These…
Active colloids are microscopic particles, which self-propel through viscous fluids by converting energy extracted from their environment into directed motion. We first explain how articial microswimmers move forward by generating…
We study colloidal particle dynamics of a model glass system using confocal and fluorescence microscopy as the sample evolves from a hard-sphere glass to a liquid with attractive interparticle interactions. The transition from hard-sphere…
Many suspensions contain particles with complex shapes that are affected not only by hydrodynamics, but also by thermal fluctuations, internal kinematic constraints and other long-range non-hydrodynamic interactions. Modeling these systems…
We perform numerical simulations to study self-assembly of nanoparticles mediated by an elastic planar surface. We show how the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of these surfaces leads to anisotropic interactions between the…
Microfluidic valves play a key role within microfluidic systems by regulating fluid flow through distinct microchannels, enabling many advanced applications in medical diagnostics, lab-on-chips, and laboratory automation. While microfluidic…
We consider anisotropic colloidal particles immersed in a solution of long, flexible, and nonadsorbing polymers. For the dumbbell shapes of recently synthesized particles consisting of two intersecting spheres and for lens-shaped particles…