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A polymer chain tethered to a surface may be compact or extended, adsorbed or desorbed, depending on interactions with the surface and the surrounding solvent. This leads to a rich phase diagram with a variety of transitions. To investigate…
Charged polymer brushes are layers of surface-tethered chains. Experimental systems are frequently strongly charged. Here we calculate phase diagrams for such brushes in terms of salt concentration n_s, grafting density and polymer backbone…
We investigate the folding and forced-unbinding transitions of adsorbed semiflexible polymer chains using theory and simulations. These processes describe biologically relevant phenomena that include adhesive interactions between proteins…
We propose a theoretical framework for dealing with a transient polymer network undergoing small deformations, based on the rate of breaking and re-forming of network crosslinks and the evolving elastic reference state. In this framework,…
The absorption of free linear chains in a polymer brush was studied with respect to chain size $L$ and compatibility $\chi$ with the brush by means of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and Density Functional Theory (DFT) / Self-Consistent Field…
Polymer brushes, coatings consisting of densely grafted macromolecules, experience an intrinsic lateral compressive pressure, originating from chain elasticity and excluded volume interactions. This lateral pressure complicates a proper…
Using Brownian Dynamics, we study the dynamical behavior of a polymer grafted onto an adhesive surface close to the mechanically induced adsorption-stretching transition. Even though the transition is first order, (in the infinite chain…
Structure and dynamics of an active polymer on a smooth cylindrical surface are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. The effect of active force on the polymer adsorption behavior and the combined effect of chain mobility, length N,…
An infinite hierarchy of layering transitions exists for model polymers in solution under poor solvent or low temperatures and near an attractive surface. A flat histogram stochastic growth algorithm known as FlatPERM has been used on a…
Neutral or charged polymers that are densely end-grafted to surfaces form brush-like structures and are highly stretched under good-solvent conditions. We discuss and compare relevant results from scaling models, self-consistent-field…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
We numerically and analytically analyze the startup continuous shear rheology of heavily entangled rigid rod polymer fluids based on our self-consistent, force-level theory of anharmonic tube confinement. The approach is simplified by…
Control of frictional interactions among liquid-suspended particles has led to tunable, strikingly non-Newtonian rheology via the formation of strong flow constraints as particles come into close proximity under shear. Typically, these…
We investigate conformations and dynamics of a polymer considering its monomers to be active Brownian particles. This active polymer shows very intriguing physical behavior which is absent in an active Rouse chain. The chain initially…
Both entangled and unentangled polymer melts exhibit stress overshoots when subject to shearing flow. The size of the overshoot depends on the applied shear rate and is related to relaxation mechanisms such as reptation, chain stretch and…
We examine the ejection of an initially strongly confined flexible polymer from a spherical capsid through a nanoscale pore. We use molecular dynamics for unprecedentedly high initial monomer densities. We show that the time for an…
The structural relaxation of amorphous materials is described as arising from the superposition of elementary processes with varying activation energies. We show that it is possible to obtain the kinetic parameters of these processes from…
Particle-based simulations are performed to study the post-relaxation dynamics of functionalized (patchy) colloids adsorbed on an attractive substrate. Kinetically arrested structures that depend on the number of adsorbed particles and the…
A buckled sheet offers a reservoir of material that can be unfurled at a later time. For sufficiently thin yet stiff materials, this geometric process has a striking mechanical feature: when the slack runs out, the material locks to further…
Conformations of a crowded neutral semiflexible polymer under confinement near an attractive wall are studied via coarse-grained simulations. We study the effects of the interplay of the length of the polymer, bending rigidity, and the…