Related papers: Interdigitation between surface-anchored polymer c…
We present a single, unified, multi-scale model to study the attachment\detachment dynamics of two deforming, near spherical cells, coated with binding ligands and subject to a slow, homogeneous shear flow in a viscous fluid medium. The…
Dissociative adsorption onto a surface introduces dynamic correlations between neighboring sites not found in non-dissociative absorption. We study surface coverage dynamics where reversible dissociative adsorption of dimers occurs on a…
Molecular adsorption at the surface of a 2D material poses numerous questions regarding the modification to the band structure and interfacial states, which of course deserve full attention. In line with this, first-principle density…
We present a new apparatus that probes simultaneously the macroscopic mechanical response and the microscopic motion in polymer networks under uni-axial strain. The setup leverages photon correlation imaging, a space- and time-resolved…
The effective adhesive properties of heterogeneous thin films are characterized through a combined experimental and theoretical investigation. By bridging scales, we show how variations of elastic or adhesive properties at the microscale…
Polymer chains undergoing a continuous adsorption-desorption transition are studied through extensive computer simulations. A three-dimensional self-avoiding walk lattice model of a polymer chain grafted onto a surface has been treated for…
Lattice model of directed self avoiding walk is used to investigate adsorption properties of a semiflexible sequential copolymer chain on an impenetrable curved surface on a hexagonal lattice in two dimensions. Walks of the copolymer chains…
Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the shear thinning behavior of immiscible symmetric polymer blends. The phase separated polymers are subjected to a simple shear flow imposed by moving a wall parallel to the…
Mechanical reliability plays an outsized role in determining the durability of flexible electronic devices because of the significant mechanical stresses they can experience during manufacturing and operation. These devices are typically…
We propose a simple friction model for isolated polymer chains on a solid substrate. The chains are pulled at constant velocity by one end, the other end can be trapped on the solid substrate on localised sites. We focus on the energy…
Simulations are used to examine the microscopic origins of strain hardening in polymer glasses. While stress-strain curves for a wide range of temperature can be fit to the functional form predicted by entropic network models, many other…
We theoretically study the strain effect on the Casimir interactions in graphene based systems. We found that the interactions between two strained graphene sheets are strongly dependent on the direction of stretching. The influence of the…
We study theoretically the surface response of a semi-infinite viscoelastic polymer network using the two-fluid model. We focus on the overdamped limit and on the effect of the network's intrinsic length scales. We calculate the decay rate…
We propose a novel class of responsive polymer brushes, where the effective grafting density can be controlled by external stimuli. This is achieved by using end-grafted polymer chains that have an affinity to the substrate. For…
When an ionic liquid adsorbs onto a porous electrode, its ionic arrangement is deeply modified due to a screening of the Coulombic interactions by the metallic surface and by the confinement imposed upon it by the electrode's morphology. In…
Dielectric elastomers (DEs) that couple deformation and electrostatics have the potential for use in soft sensors and actuators with applications ranging from robotic, biomedical, energy, aerospace and automotive technologies. However,…
I study the contact between a rigid solid with a randomly rough surface and an elastic block with a flat surface. I derive a relation between the (average) interfacial separation $u$ and the applied normal squeezing pressure $p$. I show…
In this article, we present a mathematical model that answers a classical question concerning how much force, which is generally called static friction force, will it require to initiate the motion of a soft solid block such as gel, rubber…
We formulate a theoretical model of the shear failure of a thin film tethered to a rigid substrate. The interface between film and substrate is modeled as a cohesive layer with randomly fluctuating shear strength/fracture energy. We…
In a contact density chain-growth study we investigate the solubility-temperature pseudo-phase diagram of a lattice polymer in a cavity with an attractive surface. In addition to the main phases of adsorbed and desorbed conformations we…