软凝聚态物质
Mechanical metamaterials enable precise control over structural properties, but their design method remains challenging due to their complex structure. Although additive manufacturing has expanded geometric freedom, navigating this vast and…
Inspired by biological systems, we introduce a general framework for quasi-static shape control of human-scale structures under slowly varying external actions or requirements. In this setting, shape control aims to traverse the stable…
The ability of virus shells to encapsulate a wide range of functional cargoes, especially multiple cargoes - siRNAs, enzymes, and chromophores - has made them an essential tool in biotechnology for advancing drug delivery applications and…
Associative polymers (APs) with reversible, specific interactions between ``sticker'' sites exhibit a phase behavior that depends on a delicate balance between distinct contributions controlling the binding. For highly-bonded systems, it is…
We present a geometric design rule for size-controlled clustering of self-propelled particles. We show that active particles that tend to rotate under an external force have an intrinsic, signed parameter with units of curvature which we…
The interaction of crack fronts with asperities is central to the criteria of fracture in heterogeneous materials and for predicting fracture surface formation. It is known how dynamic crack fronts respond to small, 1st-order,…
When glassy materials are rapidly quenched from the liquid to the solid state upon flow cessation or cooling, they solidify in an out-of-equilibrium configuration, retaining the memory of the processing conditions for very long times. This…
Understanding and predicting the glassy dynamics of small organic molecules is critical for applications ranging from pharmaceuticals to energy and food preservation. In this work, we present a theoretical framework that combines molecular…
Ferroelectric nematic fluids are promising materials for tunable nonlinear photonics, with applications ranging from second harmonic generation to sources of entangled photons. However, the few reported values of second-order…
We present an overdamped continuum description of oriented active solids in which interactions respect the symmetries of space but do not obey the principle of action and reaction. Taking position and orientation as kinematic variables, we…
The twice-activation method for analysis of experimental viscosity-temperature data reveals a set of interconnected parameters describing the state of the flowing glass-forming liquid in terms of convergation point which describes an…
We study the transport of active Brownian particles (ABPs) in three-dimensional (3D) oscillatory geometries, which are spatially periodic. We establish a generalized Fick-Jacobs approach, which reduces a 3D system to an effective 1D system…
The influences of restitution coefficient, $e_n$, inter-particle friction, $\mu$, and size ratio, $R$, on gravity-driven percolation of fine particles through static beds of larger particles in the free-sifting regime ($R \gtrsim 6.5$)…
The properties of films assembled by drying colloidal-particle suspensions depend sensitively on both the particles and the processing conditions, making them challenging to engineer. In this work, we develop and test an inverse-design…
Mechanical metamaterials with bistable elements can store vast amounts of information, but writing these memories requires impractical local control or lengthy multi-cycle protocols. We overcome this limitation with a dynamic control…
This review focuses on the force-induced unzipping transition of double-stranded DNA. It begins with a brief history of DNA melting, which emerged alongside the growth of the field of molecular biology, juxtaposed with the advancements in…
Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks with high water content, widely employed in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Injectable, depot-forming hydrogels enable sustained…
Lubricated friction is a multiscale problem where molecular processes dictate the macroscopic response of the system. Traditional lubrication models rely on semi-empirical constitutive relations, which become unreliable under extreme…
We consider the model of complex hyperbranched polymer structures formed on the basis of scale-free graphs, where functionalities (degrees) $k$ of nodes obey a power law decaying probability $p(k)\sim{k^{-\alpha}}$. Such polymer topologies…
Static granular packings play a central role in numerous industrial applications and natural settings. In these situations, fluid or fine particle flow through a bed of static particles is heavily influenced by the narrowest passage…