Related papers: Elasticity in strongly interacting soft solids: po…
The behavior of mobile linkers connecting two semi-flexible charged polymers, such as polyvalent counterions connecting DNA or F-actin chains, is studied theoretically. The chain bending rigidity induces an effective repulsion between…
1. Introduction 2. Charged chains at infinite dilution - asymptotic properties 2.1 Definition of the model and Flory-like calculation 2.2 Variational approaches 2.3 Renormalization group calculations 2.4 Screening of electrostatic…
Stretching response of polymer chains under external force is crucial in understanding polymer dynamics under equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions. Here we measure the elastic response of poly(ethylene glycol) using a lock-in based…
We present a novel approach to probe elastic properties of polyelectrolyte multilayer microcapsules. The method is based on measurements of the capsule load-deformation curves with the atomic force microscope. The experiment suggests that…
We study the elastic deformations in a cross-linked polymer network film triggered by the binding of submicron particles with a sticky surface, mimicking the interactions of viral pathogens with thin films of stimulus-responsive polymeric…
The elastic energy of mixing for multi-component solid solutions is derived by generalizing Eshelby's sphere-in-hole model for binary alloys. By surveying the dependence of the elastic energy on chemical composition and lattice misfit, we…
Similarly-charged polymers in solution, known as polyelectrolytes, are known to form aggregated structures in the presence of oppositely charged counterions. Understanding the dependence of the equilibrium phases and the dynamics of the…
The behavior of highly charged short rod-like polyelectrolytes near oppositely charged planar surfaces is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A detailed microstructural study, including monomer and fluid charge distribution,…
Reversible crosslinking is a design paradigm for polymeric materials, wherein they are microscopically reinforced with chemical species that form transient crosslinks between the polymer chains. Besides the potential for self-healing,…
The electrophoretic behaviour of flexible polyelectrolyte chains ranging from single monomers up to long fragments of hundred repeat units is studied by a mesoscopic simulation approach. Abstracting from the atomistic details of the…
The Debye-H\" uckel formula for ionic activity coefficients is extended for concentrated solutions by solving a simple model of many-body Coulomb correlations and adding the Born solvation energy. Given the bulk permittivity, our formula is…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
Due to their unique structural and mechanical properties, randomly-crosslinked polymer networks play an important role in many different fields, ranging from cellular biology to industrial processes. In order to elucidate how these…
We present a numerical study of polyelectrolytes electrophoresing in free solution while squeezed by an axisymmetric confinement force transverse to their net displacement. Hybrid multi-particle collision dynamics and molecular dynamics…
We study two cross-linked polymer systems in the strong stretching regime. The first consists of two polymers sharing one endpoint, with the other two endpoints coupled by a harmonic potential. Within the weakly bending approximation, we…
Ferrogels, i.e. swollen polymer networks into which magnetic particles are immersed, can be considered as "smart materials" since their shape and elasticity can be controlled by an external magnetic field. Using molecular dynamics…
Disordered soft materials, such as fibrous networks in biological contexts exhibit a nonlinear elastic response. We study such nonlinear behavior with a minimal model for networks on lattice geometries with simple Hookian elements with…
Disordered filamentous networks with compliant crosslinks exhibit a low linear elastic shear modulus at small strains, but stiffen dramatically at high strains. Experiments have shown that the elastic modulus can increase by up to three…
We present results of molecular dynamics simulations of strong, flexible polyelectrolyte chains in solution with added salt. The effect of added salt on the polyelectrolyte chain structure is fully treated for the first time as a function…
According to classical electrolyte theories interactions in dilute (low ion density) electrolytes decay exponentially with distance, with the Debye screening length the characteristic length-scale. This decay length decreases monotonically…