Related papers: Colloid-Induced Polymer Compression
We investigate the non-equilibrium compression of a confined hard-sphere colloidal fluid driven by a mobile boundary within dynamical density functional theory. The system consists of a fluid confined between two parallel walls, one acting…
In the presence of a non-adsorbing polymer, monodisperse rod-like colloids assemble into one-rod-length thick liquid-like monolayers, called colloidal membranes. The density of the rods within a colloidal membrane is determined by a balance…
The non-equilibrium distribution of colloids in a polymer solution under a temperature gradient is studied experimentally. A slight increase of local temperature by a focused laser drives the colloids towards the hot region, resulting in…
We investigate effective interactions between a colloidal particle, immersed in a binary mixture of smaller spheres, and a semipermeable membrane. The colloid is modeled as a big hard sphere and the membrane is represented as an infinitely…
We analyze the conformational dynamics and statistical properties of an active polymer model. The polymer is described as a freely-jointed bead-rod chain subject to stochastic active force dipoles that act on the suspending solvent where…
Depletion forces and macromolecular crowding govern the structure and function of biopolymers in biological cells and the properties of polymer nanocomposite materials. To isolate and analyze the influence of polymer shape fluctuations and…
Polydisperse mixtures are those in which components with a whole range of sizes are present. It is shown that the fluid phase of polydisperse hard spheres is thermodynamically unstable unless the density of large spheres decreases at least…
We determine the depletion-induced phase-behavior of hard sphere colloids and interacting polymers by large-scale Monte Carlo simulations using very accurate coarse-graining techniques. A comparison with standard Asakura-Oosawa model…
Limited-valency colloidal particles can self-assemble into polymeric structures analogous to molecules. While their structural equilibrium properties have attracted wide attention, insight into their dynamics has proven challenging. Here,…
We study the phase behavior of mixtures of monodisperse colloidal spheres with a depletion agent which can have arbitrary shape and can possess a polydisperse size or shape distribution. In the low concentration limit, considered here, we…
The dynamics of polymer decompression, i.e., a process from compressed, compact state to the relaxed swoll en conformation, can be formally described as a {\it nonlinear diffusion}. We discuss here two basic examples: (i) the expansion, or…
The present contribution focuses on the thermodynamically consistent mechanical modeling of the strain-induced crystallization in unfilled polymers. This phenomenon is of particular importance for the mechanical properties of polymers as…
We study the behavior of a flexible polymer chain in the presence of a low-molecular weight solvent in the vicinity of a liquid-gas critical point within the framework of a self-consistent field theory. The total free energy of the dilute…
Density functional theory is used to study binary colloidal fluids consisting of hard spheres and thin platelets in their bulk and near a planar hard wall. This system exhibits liquid-liquid coexistence of a phase that is rich in spheres…
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic…
Colloidal spheres synthesized from polymer gels swell by absorbing molecules from solution. The resulting change in size can be monitored with nanometer precision using holographic video microscopy. When the absorbate is chemically similar…
Monte Carlo computer simulations are used to study the segregation behaviour of two polymers under cylindrical confinement. Using a multiple-histogram method, the conformational free energy, F, of the polymers was measured as a function of…
The local balance equations for the density, momentum, and energy of a dilute gas of elastic or inelastic hard spheres, strongly confined between two parallel hard plates are obtained. The starting point is a Boltzmann-like kinetic…
We present results from molecular dynamics simulations of a spherically confined neutral polymer in the presence of crowding agents, studying polymer shapes and conformations as a function of the confining potential, solvent quality and the…
We study jammed configurations of hard spheres as a function of compression speed using an event-driven molecular dynamics algorithm. We find that during the compression, the pressure follows closely the metastable liquid branch until the…