Related papers: Controlling microgel morphology and swelling behav…
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…
Conducting polymer dendrite (CPD) morphogenesis is an electrochemical process that unlocks the potential to implement in materio evolving intelligence in electrical systems: As an electronic device experiences transient voltages in an…
Core-shell Au@pNIPAM nanocomposites are assembled through a simple and inexpensive approach where drops of bulk nanoparticle solution are left to dry on ITO surfaces at fixed and finely tuned temperatures. Interparticle distances are…
We describe the design of micropatterned surfaces for single cell studies, based on thermoresponsive polymer brushes. We show that brushes made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) grafted at high surface density display excellent protein and…
Copolymerization is commonly employed to tune polymers' glass formation and improve properties such as ion conductivity and adhesion. Classically, mixing rules such as the Fox equation are employed to explain glass transition temperature…
Immediately before adsorption to a horizontal substrate, sinking polymer-coated colloids can undergo a complex sequence of landing, jumping, crawling and rolling events. Using video tracking we studied the soft adhesion to a horizontal flat…
The phase behaviour of soft colloids has attracted great attention due to the large variety of new phenomenologies emerging from their ability to pack at very high volume fractions. Here we report rheological measurements on interpenetrated…
The presence of nanoparticles in a diblock copolymer leads to changes in the morphology and properties of the matrix and can produce highly organized hybrid materials. The resulting material properties depend not only on the polymer…
Brownian Dynamics simulations are carried out to understand the effect of temperature and dielectric constant of the medium on microphase separation of charged-neutral diblock copolymer systems. For different dielectric media, we focus on…
Controlling the anchoring of liquid crystal molecules at an interface with a water solution influences the entire organization of the underlying liquid crystal phase, which is crucial for many applications. The simplest way to stabilize…
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…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations to investigate hydration structures and dynamics in seven water-containing polymers: PVA, PHEA, PHEMA, PBA, PMEMA, PEG, and PMEA. The analysis integrates four perspectives: the water-content…
We investigate the impact of nanoparticles (NP) on the fragility and cooperative string-like motion in a model glass-forming polymer melt by molecular dynamics simulation. The NP cause significant changes to both the fragility and the…
We investigate dynamical heterogeneities in the collective relaxation of a concentrated microgel system, for which the packing fraction can be conveniently varied by changing the temperature. The packing fraction dependent mechanical…
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…
We use machine learning algorithms to detect the crystalline phase in undercooled melts in molecular dynamics simulations. Our classification method is based on local conformation and environmental fingerprints of individual monomers. In…
We study the phase behavior of single homopolymers in a simple hydrophobic/hydrophilic off-lattice model with sequence independent local interactions. The specific heat is, not unexpectedly, found to exhibit a pronounced peak well below the…
An important indicator of membrane performance are free volume elements (FVEs): microporous void spaces created by the inefficient packing of bulky groups along the polymer chain. FVEs tend to degrade over time as polymer chains reorganize…
The effects of the length of each hydrophobic end block N_{st} and polymer concentration \bar{\phi}_{P} on the transition broadness in amphiphilic ABA symmetric triblock copolymer solutions are studied using the self-consistent field…
Healthy articular cartilage has excellent lubricating properties, with friction coefficients reaching extremely low values at physiological pressures. Such high-performing lubricating layer in joints is attributed to the surface hydration…