Related papers: Controlling microgel morphology and swelling behav…
Phase change memory (PCM) is a rapidly growing technology that not only offers advancements in storage-class memories but also enables in-memory data storage and processing towards overcoming the von Neumann bottleneck. In PCMs, the primary…
Unstructured proteins can modulate cellular responses to environmental conditions by undergoing coil-globule transitions and phase separation. However, the molecular mechanisms of these phenomena still need to be fully understood. Here, we…
Microgels are colloidal-scale particles individually made of crosslinked polymer networks that can swell and deswell in response to external stimuli, such as changes to temperature or pH. Despite a large amount of experimental activities on…
Recent demonstrations of inverted thermal activation of charge mobility in polymer field-effect transistors have excited the interest in transport regimes not limited by thermal barriers. However, rationalization of the limiting factors to…
Understanding interfacial heat transfer between polymers and water is crucial for the design of biomaterials, drug delivery platforms, and nanofluidic systems. In this study, we employed all atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to…
Tuning the chain-end functionality of a short-chain cationic homopolymer, owing to the nature of the initiator used in the ATRP polymerisation step, can be used to mediate the formation of a gel of this poly(electrolyte) in water. While a…
Metallic nanoparticles have been used as catalysts for various reactions, and the huge literature on the subject is hard to overlook. In many applications, the nanoparticles must be affixed to a colloidal carrier for easy handling during…
In this work, we introduce an advanced thermo-active variable impedance module which builds upon our previous innovation in thermal-based impedance adjustment for actuation systems. Our initial design harnessed the temperature-responsive,…
Thermodynamic behavior of polymer chains out of equilibrium is a fundamental problem in both polymer physics and biological physics. By using molecular dynamics simulation, we discover a general non-equilibrium mechanism that controls the…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of an idealized polymer melt surrounding a nanoscopic filler particle to probe the effects of a filler on the local melt structure and dynamics. We show that the glass transition temperature $T_g$…
We present a kinetic model of crystal growth of polymers of finite molecular weight. Experiments help to classify polymer crystallization broadly into two kinetic regimes. One is observed in melts or in high molar mass polymer solutions and…
We address the problem of inverse polymer swelling. This phenomenon, in which a collapsed polymer chain swells upon decreasing temperature, can be observed experimentally in so-called thermoreversible homopolymers in aqueous solution, and…
Wettability plays a significant role in controlling multiphase flow in porous media for many industrial applications, including geologic carbon dioxide sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and fuel cells. Microfluidics is a powerful tool…
We show how dynamic heterogeneities (DH), a hallmark of glass-forming materials, depend on chain flexibility and chain length in polymers. For highly flexible polymers, a relatively large number of monomers ($N_c\sim500$) undergo correlated…
We study the effect of a gradient of solvent quality on the coil-globule transition for a polymer in a narrow pore. A simple self-attracting self-avoiding walk model of a polymer in solution shows that the variation in the strength of…
We study the effects of confinement between two parallel walls on a two dimensional fluid with competing interactions which lead to the formation of particle micro-domains at the thermodynamic equilibrium (microphases or microseparation).…
The thermoresponsive behavior of Pluronic F127 solutions is governed by temperature-dependent micellization and complex self-assembly of these micelles. This study investigates the effect of thermal stimuli on the kinetics of phase…
We study geometric and energetic factors that partake in modifying properties of polymeric melts via inserting well-dispersed nanoscopic particles (NP). Model systems are polybutadiene melts including 10-150 atom atomic clusters (0.1-1.5%…
Micron-sized hard core-soft shell hybrid microgels are promising model systems for studies of soft matter as they enable in-situ optical investigations and their structures/morphologies can be engineered with a great variety. Yet, protocols…
Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is a semi--crystalline polymer that can be crystallized to different degrees heating from the amorphous state. Even when primary crystallization has been completed, secondary crystallization can take place…