Related papers: Formation of polymer brushes
Block copolymer self-assembly is a fundamental process in which incompatible blocks spontaneously form organized microstructures with broad practical applications. Classical understanding is that the domain spacing is limited by the contour…
We report an extensive numerical study of a charged colloidal system with competing short-range depletion attraction and long-range electrostatic repulsion. By analizing the cluster properties, we identify two distinct regions in the phase…
Active matter systems evade the constraints of thermal equilibrium, leading to the emergence of intriguing collective behavior. A paradigmatic example is given by motor-filament mixtures, where the motion of motor proteins drives alignment…
The consolidation of suspended particulate matter under external forces such as pressure or gravity is of widespread interest. In this work, we derive a constitutive relation to describe the deformation of a {\it two-dimensional} strongly…
The interaction between visco-elasto-plastic and adhesive particles is the subject of this study, where "meso-particles" are introduced, i.e., simplified particles, whose contact mechanics is not taken into account in all details. A few…
We consider a linear polymer chain in a disordered environment modeled by percolation clusters on a square lattice. The disordered environment is meant to roughly represent molecular crowding as seen in cells. The model may be viewed as the…
Recent experimental results suggest that the E. coli chromosome feels a self-attracting interaction of osmotic origin, and is condensed in foci by bridging interactions. Motivated by these findings, we explore a generic modeling framework…
We analyze the response of molecular adhesion complexes to increasing pulling forces (dynamic force spectroscopy) when dissociation can occur along either one of two alternative trajectories in the underlying multidimensional energy…
Ferrogels and magnetic elastomers differentiate themselves from other materials by their unique capability of reversibly changing shape and mechanical properties under the influence of an external magnetic field. A crucial issue in the…
We consider the response of an adsorbed polymer that is pulled by an AFM within a simple geometric framework. We separately consider the cases of i) fixed polymer-surface contact point, ii) sticky case where the polymer is peeled off from…
Compression of an adsorbed polymer layer distorts its relaxed structure. Surface force measurements from different laboratories show that the return to this relaxed structure after the compression is released can be slowed to the scale of…
We consider a microscopic model of a polymer blend that is prone to phase separation. Permanent crosslinks are introduced between randomly chosen pairs of monomers, drawn from the Deam-Edwards distribution. Thereby, not only density but…
Picking up, laying down, colliding, rolling, and peeling are partial-contact interactions involving moving discontinuities. We examine the balances of momentum and energy across a moving discontinuity in a string, with allowance for…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
In this paper we review some recent results, obtained jointly with Stu Whittington, for a mathematical model describing a copolymer in an emulsion. The copolymer consists of hydrophobic and hydrophilic monomers, concatenated randomly with…
Collapse of the polymer chain upon the sharp decrease of solvent quality is studied. During collapse, any pair of polymer units appearing in a sufficiently close vicinity in space has the possibility with a certain probability to form an…
Using a coarse-grained bead-spring model for semi-flexible macromolecules forming a polymer brush, structure and dynamics of the polymers is investigated, varying chain stiffness and grafting density. The anchoring condition for the grafted…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
We introduce a novel coarse-grained bead-spring model for flexible polymers to systematically examine the effects of an adjusted bonded potential on the formation and stability of structural macrostates in a thermal environment. The density…
Compliant environments can mediate interactions between mechanically active cells like fibroblasts. Starting with a phenomenological model for the behaviour of single cells, we use extensive Monte Carlo simulations to predict non-trivial…