软凝聚态物质
Macromolecules can gain special properties by adopting knotted conformations, but engineering knotted macromolecules is a challenging task. Here we surprisingly observed that knotting can be very effectively produced in active polymers.…
The Martini model, a coarse-grained forcefield for biomolecular simulations, has experienced a vast increase in popularity in the past decade. Its building-block approach balances computational efficiency with high chemical specificity,…
In living cells, proteins self-assemble into large functional structures based on specific interactions between molecularly complex patches. Due to this complexity, protein self-assembly results from a competition between a large number of…
This study presents a novel approach for reconstructing all stress components of the dynamic axisymmetric fields of a soft material using photoelastic tomography (PT) and a high-speed polarization camera. This study focuses on static and…
Depinning transitions occur when a threshold force must be applied to drive an otherwise immobile system. For the depinning of colloidal particles from a corrugated landscape, we show how active noise due to self-propulsion impacts the…
Integrated photoelasticity is investigated for a soft material subjected to a three-dimensional stress state. In the experiment, a solid sphere is pressed against a gelatin gel (Young's modulus is about 4.2 kPa) that deforms up to 4.5 mm…
Understanding swimming in soft yielding media is challenging due to their complex deformation response to the swimmer's motion. We experimentally show that a scallop-inspired swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings generates locomotion in…
The evolution of multicellularity involved the transformation of a simple cell wall of unicellular ancestors into a complex, multifunctional extracellular matrix (ECM). A suitable model organism to study the formation and expansion of an…
Magnetic fluids exhibit tunable structures and electrophysical properties, making them promising for adaptive optical systems, biomedical sensors, and microelectromechanical devices. However, the dynamic evolution of their microstructure…
The mechanical, optical, and chemical properties of a wide variety of soft materials are enabled and constrained by their bulk structure. How this structure emerges at small system sizes during self-assembly has been the subject of decades…
Couplings between biochemical and mechanical processes have a profound impact on embryonic development. However, in-vitro studies capable of quantifying these interactions have remained elusive. Here, we investigate a synthetic system where…
We investigate the conformational and dynamical properties of a partially active Rouse chain, where activity is localized within a specific segment, positioned at various locations along the chain and spanning any given length. Through…
The properties of liquid water are known to change drastically in confined geometries. A most interesting and intriguing phenomenon is that the diffusion of water is found to be strongly enhanced by the proximity of a hydrophobic confining…
Through the decomposition of the pressure into the kinetic and the intermolecular contributions, we show that the pressure anisotropy in the fluid interface, which is the source of the interfacial tension, comes solely from the latter…
Mechanical properties of disordered materials are governed by their underlying free energy landscape. In contrast to external fields, embedding a small fraction of active particles within a disordered material generates non-equilibrium…
Rheology plays a pivotal role in understanding the flow behavior of fluids by discovering governing equations that relate deformation and stress, known as constitutive equations. Despite the importance of these equations, current methods…
Quantifying the critical micelle concentration (CMC) and understanding its relationship with both the intrinsic molecular structures and environmental conditions are crucial for the rational design of surfactants. Here, we develop a…
Geometry and topology play a fundamental role in determining pattern formation on 2D surfaces in condensed matter physics. For example, local positive Gaussian curvature of a 2D surface attracts positive topological defects in a liquid…
Contacts between particles in dense, sheared suspensions are believed to underpin much of their rheology. Roughness and adhesion are known to constrain the relative motion of particles, and thus globally affect the shear response, but an…
Since the influential work of ten Wolde, Ruiz-Montero, and Frenkel [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 2714 (1995)], crystal nucleation from a Lennard-Jones fluid has been regarded as a paradigmatic example of metastable crystal ordering at the surface…