Related papers: Structure of strongly interacting polyelectrolyte …
Evidence accumulated over the past decade provides support for liquid-liquid phase separation as the mechanism underlying the formation of biomolecular condensates, which include not only membraneless organelles such as nucleoli and RNA…
Fast-cooling after sintering or annealing of BiFeO3-BaTiO3 mixed oxide ceramics yields core-shell structures that give excellent functional properties, but their precise phase assemblage and nanostructure remains an open question. By…
The formation of colloidal gels is strongly dependent on the volume fraction of the system and the strength of the interactions between the colloids. Here we explore very dilute solutions by the means of numerical simulations, and show…
When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…
Energetic X-ray radiations emitted from various accretion systems are widely considered to be produced by Comptonization in the hot corona. The corona and its interaction with the disc play an essential role in the evolution of the system…
Soft materials possessing tunable rheological properties are desirable in applications ranging from 3D printing to biological scaffolds. Here, we use a telechelic, triblock copolymer polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide)-b-polystyrene (SEOS)…
The thermodynamic behavior of mixed systems containing the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and the nonionic surfactant polyethylene glycol dodecyl ether (Brij L4) in aqueous solutions was investigated. Electrical…
Cyclic polymers display unique physical behaviors in comparison to their linear counterparts. Theoretical, computational and experimental studies have revealed that some of their distinctive properties are also observed in charged variants…
Similarly-charged polyelectrolytes are known to attract each other and aggregate into bundles when the charge density of the polymers exceeds a critical value that depends on the valency of the counterions. The dynamics of aggregation of…
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study on the role of copolymer architecture in the self-assembly of binary PEO-PCL mixtures in water-THF, and show that altering the chain geometry and composition of the copolymers can…
Controlled assembly of single-crystal, colloidal maghemite nanoparticles is facilitated via a high-temperature polyol-based pathway. Structural characterization shows that size-tunable nanoclusters of 50 and 86 nm diameters (D), with high…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to probe hydration, ion spacing, and cation-anion interaction in two sulfonated polysulfones with different ion distributions along the polymer backbone. At room temperature, these polymers remain in a…
Binary mixtures of amphiphiles in solution can self-assemble into a wide range of structures when the two species individually form aggregates of different curvatures. In this paper, we focus on small, spherically-symmetric aggregates in a…
The study presented hereafter shows a new methodology to reveal traces of polyethylene (the most common microplastic particles, known as a structure of C_2 H_4) in a sample of ocean water by the irradiation of a 50 keV, 1 uA electron beam.…
Hydrodynamics and confinement dominate bacterial mobility near solid or air-water boundaries, causing flagellated bacteria to move in circular trajectories. This phenomenon results from the counter-rotation between the bacterial body and…
We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
Soft particulate gels include materials we can eat, squeeze, or 3D print. From foods to bio-inks to cement hydrates, these gels are composed of a small amount of particulate matter (proteins, polymers, colloidal particles, or agglomerates…
We investigate the nucleation and propagation of cracks in self-assembled viscoelastic fluids, which are made of surfactant micelles reversibly linked by telechelic polymers. The morphology of the micelles can be continuously tuned, from…
We examine binary mixtures of superparamagnetic colloidal particles confined to a two-dimensional water-air interface both by real-space experiments and Monte-Carlo computer simulations at high coupling strength. In the simulations, the…
Macroscopic strain experiments revealed that Si crystals traversed by parallel, channel-like nanopores functionalized with the muscle polymer polypyrrole exhibit large and reversible electrochemo-mechanical actuation in aqueous…