相关论文: Pore Stability and Dynamics in Polymer Membranes
We present a theory for pore dynamics of osmotically stressed vesicles. When a liposome with an internal concentration of solute is placed inside a solute-depleted medium, an osmotic flow of solvent through the lipid bilayer leads to…
A cell dynamics method for domain separation of diblock copolymers (DBCPs) interacting with nanoparticles (NPs) whose diffusion coefficients depend on chain configuration is proposed for self-assembly of DBCP/NP composites. Increasing NP…
We study pore nucleation in a model membrane system, a freestanding polymer film. Nucleated pores smaller than a critical size close, while pores larger than the critical size grow. Holes of varying size were purposefully prepared in liquid…
We report the results from a computational study of the self-assembly of amphiphilic ditethered nanospheres using molecular simulation. We explore the phase behavior as a function of nanosphere diameter, interaction strength, and…
Water plays a key role in biological membrane transport. In ion channels and water-conducting pores (aquaporins), one dimensional confinement in conjunction with strong surface effects changes the physical behavior of water. In molecular…
Understanding surface mechanics of soft solids, such as soft polymeric gels, is crucial in many engineering processes, such as dynamic wetting and adhesive failure. In these situations, a combination of capillary and elastic forces drives…
Amphiphilic block copolymer solutions form various micellar structures including micelles and vesicles. We applied the density functional theory for block copolymers which we have proposed to amphiphilic block copolymer systems. The 3…
Permeative flows, known for the explanation of the anomalous viscosity (10^5 Poise) in cholesterics at low shear rates, are still under debate due to the difficulty of experiments. Here we use the Surface Force Balance, in which uniform…
Recent advances in micro- and nano-technologies allow the construction of complex active systems from biological and synthetic materials. An interesting example is active vesicles, which consist of a membrane enclosing self-propelled…
Past work has shown that ions can pass through a membrane more readily in one direction than the other. We demonstrate here in a model and an experiment that for a mixture of small and large particles such asymmetric diffusion can arise…
We carry out numerical simulations of vesicle formation based on the density functional theory for block copolymer solutions. It is shown by solving the time evolution equations for concentrations that a polymer vesicle is spontaneously…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
Equilibrium self-assembly and conventional materials processing techniques fall far short of mimicking dynamic self-actuating processes that are commonplace throughout biology. To bridge the gap between living and synthetic matter, we study…
Amphiphiles are molecules which have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts. In water- and/or oil-like solvent, they self-assemble into extended sheet-like structures due to the hydrophobic effect. The free energy of an amphiphilic system…
A multiple-image method is developed to accurately calculate the electrostatic interaction between neutral dielectric particles and a uniformly charged dielectric substrate. The difference in dielectric constants between the particle and…
The self-assembly of molecules at surfaces can be caused by a range of physical mechanisms. Assembly can be driven by intermolecular forces, or molecule-surface forces, or both; it can result in structures that are in equilibrium or that…
We study mutual alignment and interactions between colloidal particles of dissimilar shapes and dimensions when dispersed in a nematic host fluid. Convex pentagonal and concave starfruit-shaped nanoprisms and microspheres induce dipolar or…
The self-assembly of submerged cold-plasma-treated polyethylene beads is reported. The plasma-treated immersed millimetrically-sized polyethylene beads formed well-ordered 2D quasi-crystalline structures. The submerged floating of light…
In the self-assembly process which drives the formation of cellular membranes, micelles, and capsids, a collection of separated subunits spontaneously binds together to form functional and more ordered structures. In this work, we study the…
Inspired by recent experiments on chromosomal dynamics, we introduce an exactly solvable model for the interaction between a flexible polymer and a set of motor-like enzymes. The enzymes can bind and unbind to specific sites of the polymer…