Related papers: Aggregation of colloidal nanoparticles in polymer …
Hypothesis: Colloidal molecules with anisotropic shapes and interactions are powerful model systems for deciphering the behavior of real molecules and building units for creating materials with designed properties. While many strategies for…
Silicon-oxygen compounds are among the most important ones in the natural sciences, occurring as building blocks in minerals and being used in semiconductors and catalysis. Beyond the well known silicon dioxide, there are phases with…
We study elastic interactions between colloidal particles and deformation landscapes of undulations in a cholesteric liquid crystal under an electric field applied normal to cholesteric layers. The onset of undulation instability is…
Nature provides many paradigms for the design and fabrication of artificial composite materials. Inspired by the relationship between the well-ordered architecture and biopolymers found in natural nacre, we present a facile strategy to…
The integration of functional molecules onto conductive or dielectric surfaces represents a promising avenue for employing molecule-centric technologies, encompassing sensor development, electrochromic, and the facilitation of charge and…
Nanocomposite thin films of Zinc Oxide and Silicon were grown by co-evaporating powdered ZnO and Si. This resulted in nanocrystallites of ZnO being embedded in Silicon. The mismatch in crystal structures of constituent materials result in…
The detailed nature of spatially heterogeneous dynamics of glycerol-silica nanocomposites is unraveled by combining dielectric spectroscopy with atomistic simulation and statistical mechanical theory. Analysis of the spatial mobility…
The complexation of micelles or charged nanoparticles with neutral-charged block copolymers in aqueous solutions leads to the formation of colloidal superstructures also termed 'colloidal complexes'. Their primary interest relies in their…
We report on a model of polymer nanocomposites with fibrous fillers which explicitly considers the microscopic filler features and replicates the composites as random distributions of particles interconnected via electron tunneling. By…
Explicit molecular dynamics simulations were applied to a pair of amorphous silica nanoparticles of diameter 3.2 nm immersed in a background electrolyte. Mean forces acting between the pair of silica nanoparticles were extracted at four…
The sol-gel technique was developed for preparation of silica glasses doped with europium and copper chalcogenide nanoparticles. A synthesis of copper compounds proceeded within the solid matrix at the different steps of the process, and…
Exploiting elastic instability in thin films has proven a robust method for creating complex patterns and structures across a wide range of lengthscales. Even the simplest of systems, an elastic membrane with a lattice of pores, under…
The ability to manufacture nanomaterials with complex and structured composition using otherwise incompatible materials increasingly underpins the next generation of technologies. This is translating into growing efforts integrating a wider…
We demonstrate scaffolding of plasmonic nanoparticles by topological defects induced by colloidal microspheres to match their surface boundary conditions with a uniform far-field alignment in a liquid crystal host. Displacing energetically…
Recent theoretical studies have predicted a new clustering mechanism for soft matter particles that interact via a certain kind of purely repulsive, bounded potentials. At sufficiently high densities, clusters of overlapping particles are…
Thin films made of deformable micro- and nano-units, such as biological membranes, polymer interfaces, and particle-laden liquid surfaces, exhibit a complex behavior during drying, with consequences for various applications like wound…
Nanocomposite films were fabricated by supersonic cluster beam deposition (SCBD) of palladium clusters on Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) surfaces. The evolution of the electrical conductance with cluster coverage and microscopy analysis…
We investigate the effect of polymer length dispersity on the properties of self-assembled micelles in solution by self-consistent field calculations. Polydispersity stabilizes micelles by raising the free energy barriers of micelle…
Colloid-polymer mixtures can undergo spinodal decomposition into colloid-rich and colloid-poor regions. Gelation results when interconnected colloid-rich regions solidify. We show that this occurs when these regions undergo a glass…
Understanding how colloidal suspensions behave in confined environments has a striking relevance in practical applications. Despite the fact that the behaviour of colloids in the bulk is key to identify the main elements affecting their…