5 papers
Unravelling the multiscale surface mechanics of soft solids
Nicolas Bain, Lawrence A. Wilen, Dominic Gerber +7
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for po…
Disordered origins, deterministic outcomes: How the architecture of elastic networks imprints relaxed structure and mechanics
Stefanie Heyden, Mohit Pundir, Eric R. Dufresne +1
This work targets the influence of disorder on the relaxed structure and macroscopic mechanical properties of elastic networks. We construct network classes of different types of d…
Controlling polymerization-induced phase separation in the synthesis of porous gels
Yanxia Feng, Noel Ringeisen, Eric R. Dufresne +2
Porous gels -- gels with solvent-filled pores that are much larger than their mesh size -- are widely used in engineering and biomedical applications due to their tunable mechanics…
Could Living Cells Use Phase Transitions to Process Information?
Arvind Murugan, David Zwicker, Charlotta Lorenz +1
To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of…
Thermodynamics of microphase separation in a swollen, strain-stiffening polymer network
Carla Fernández-Rico, Robert W. Style, Stefanie Heyden +3
Elastic MicroPhase Separation (EMPS) provides a simple route to create soft materials with homogeneous microstructures by leveraging the supersaturation of crosslinked polymer netw…