软凝聚态物质
Machine knitting provides a scalable platform for manufacturing multifunctional textiles in which geometry, mechanics, and embedded functionality can be programmed at the stitch level. However, predictive design tools capable of linking…
Shear of three-dimensional, highly compressed granular packings is simulated using a bonded particle approach that explicitly resolves elastic deformation. Varying Poisson's ratio $\nu$ produces significant changes in rheology, packing…
Polar collective motion commonly arises from alignment interactions, particle anisotropy, or an imposed directional bias. Here we identify a distinct route to polar order that does not rely on alignment interactions between the active…
Universality is one of the central organising principles of modern physics, explaining why systems with vastly different microscopic constituents can exhibit identical large-scale behaviour. While the classification of equilibrium critical…
Single-molecule (SM) rotational dynamics of fluorescent probes in polystyrene near the glass transition temperature ($T_g$) are investigated over long times to reconstruct susceptibility spectra. The loss spectrum, commonly recorded using…
Suspensions of motile microswimmers such as bacteria and other active colloids frequently encounter porous environments where obstacles and complex shear flows strongly influence their dynamics. Here, we study the distribution and transport…
We study a dilute system of non-motile chiral active particles confined in geometries ranging from straight channels to circular enclosures. Activity is introduced through chiral particle-wall interactions, modeled as tangential wall forces…
The instabilities of slender structures power biological locomotion across scales, and offer a compelling method to actuate soft robots. Nonreciprocal elastic solids have been found to amplify flexural waves in one direction only, but…
We investigate fluid mixing induced by microswimmers using mutual information as a global, information-theoretic measure of mixing efficiency. For a two-dimensional squirmer model in a confined domain, we compute numerically the…
We investigate the low-Reynolds-number propulsion of a slender elastic filament with a dipolar magnetic head actuated by an oscillating field in a viscous fluid by studying its strokes and net forward motion. To capture these dynamics, we…
Chemical gradients are ubiquitous in porous and crowded environments, including soils, filters, fabrics, tissues, hydrogels, biofilms and living cells. They arise from displacement fronts, dissolution and precipitation, ion exchange,…
We use self-consistent field theory to investigate the free energy landscape for single-chain expulsion from a diblock copolymer micelle with a dense corona. Using the distance from the micelle center-of-mass to the hydrophilic-hydrophobic…
We investigate the role of compressibility in the modified quasi-linear viscoelastic (MQLV) constitutive framework for soft solids at finite strain, where shear and bulk responses are governed by distinct relaxation functions. Analytical…
For many decades, researchers have been studying various types of electro-hydrodynamic instabilities in liquid crystals. A significant amount of experimental data has been collected, however, the theoretical interpretations of the results…
Magnetic active particles offer a versatile route to externally controlled microscale transport by combining self-propulsion with field-tunable orientation, as realized in both synthetic and living magnetic microswimmers. Here, we develop a…
There are many situations in nature and industry where small particles are exposed to gradients of charged polymers, such as enzymes in biological gradients of DNA or RNA, virus particles in respiratory droplets, and colloidal particles in…
Achieving robust functionality in active matter driven away from thermal equilibrium is a current theoretical and experimental challenge. Several recent studies have reported edge currents--persistent transport along walls and density…
Addressable self-assembly asks that each building block assemble into a particular location in a target structure. Although particles may all be distinct, achieving high yield is a challenge because of monomer depletion: more target…
Many subcellular condensates continuously produce biopolymers. Coupling Flory-Huggins thermodynamics to two-fluid viscoelasticity, we probe the diffusion of such source-driven polymeric droplets, and identify a universal structural…
We employ large-scale Dissipative Particle Dynamics simulations to investigate dilute solutions of linear polymers and unknotted, non-concatenated ring polymers in explicit solvent. By systematically varying solvent quality, we examine the…