Related papers: Do Spherical Polyelectrolyte Brushes Interdigitate…
We examine the interactions between polyelectrolytes (PEs) and uncharged substrates at conditions corresponding to a dielectric discontinuity between the aqueous solution and the substrate. To this end, we vary the relevant system…
We study the swelling and shrinking behavior of core-shell microgels adsorbed on silicon wafers. In these systems, the core is made of cross-linked poly(N isopropylmethacrylamide) and the shell consists of cross linked poly(N-n…
We simulate model systems of charged spherical particles in their counterion solution and measure the thermodynamic pressure and the pair distribution function from which we derive effective potentials of mean force. For a system with only…
We study the low-frequency polarization response of a surface-charged oblate spheroidal particle immersed in an electrolyte solution. Because the charged spheroid attracts counter-ions which form the electric double layer around the…
We prepared a buoyancy matched binary mixture of polydisperse polystyrene microgel spheres of size ratio 0.785 and at a volume fraction of 0.567 just below the kinetic glass transition. In line with theoretical expectations, a eutectic…
Explicit molecular dynamics simulations were applied to a pair of amorphous silica nanoparticles in aqueous solution, of diameter 4.4 nm with four different background electrolyte concentrations, to extract the mean force acting between the…
In this paper, we study the electrostatics of pH-responsive polyelectrolyte-grafted spherical particles by using a strong stretching theory that takes into account the excluded volume interaction and the density of chargeable sites on the…
Effective electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles, coated with polyelectrolyte brushes and suspended in an electrolyte solvent, are described via linear response theory. The inner cores of the macroions are modeled as hard…
Colloidal gels are out of equilibrium soft solids composed of attractive Brownian particles that form a space-spanning network at low volume fractions. The elastic properties of these systems result from the network microstructure, which is…
Following up a recent paper on grafted sliding polymer layers (Macromolecules 2005, 38, 1434-1441), we investigated the influence of the sliding degree of freedom on the self-assembly of sliding polymeric surfactants that can be obtained by…
Spherical micelle modified by cononsolvency effect is investigated by using self-consistent field theory (SCFT) and random phase approximation, which is formed by diblock copolymers consisted of one permanent hydrophobic block and one…
Microscopy observations show that suspensions of synthetic and natural nano-layered smectite clay particles submitted to a strong external electric field undergo a fast and extended structuring. This structuring results from the interaction…
Colloids dispersed in a non-polar solvent become charged when reverse micelles are added. We study the charge of individual sterically-stabilized poly(methyl methacrylate) spheres dispersed in micellar solutions of the surfactants sodium…
We propose a physical mechanism to explain the crystal symmetries found in macromolecular and supramolecular micellar materials. We argue that the packing entropy of the hard micellar cores is frustrated by the entropic interaction of their…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
The adsorption of highly \textit{oppositely} charged flexible polyelectrolytes onto a charged spherical surface is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations in a fashion which resembles the layer-by-layer deposition technique…
PEP-PEO block copolymer micelles offer the possibility to investigate phase behaviour and interactions of star polymers (ultra-soft colloids). A star-like architecture is achieved by an extremely asymmetric block ratio (1:20). Micellar…
Monolayers of soft colloidal particles confined at fluid interfaces have been attracting increasing interest for fundamental studies and applications alike. However, establishing the relation between their internal architecture, which is…
We have modeled the layer-by-layer assembly process of flexible polyelectrolytes on flat surfaces. The multilayer has a three-zone structure. An exponential growth is found for the first several layers, followed by a linear growth for…
In this review, we address the issue of the electrostatic complexation between charged-neutral diblock copolymers and oppositely charged nanocolloids. We show that nanocolloids such as surfactant micelles and iron oxide magnetic…