Soft Matter Blog

Read these Hot Articles for free until 31 August>>>

Layer-by-layer (LbL) assemblies in nanoporous templates and their benefits for synthesising complex and functional nanotubular structures are described in this Review. 1D Nanostructures fabricated by the LbL nanotemplating strategy have applications in various technological areas, and are part of an emerging area of “soft nanotechnology”. Omar Azzaroni and K. H. Aaron Lau, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05561E.

Gelation of semiflexible polyelectrolytes by multivalent counterions: Filamentous polyelectrolyte viruses have been used to study liquid crystal phase transitions and counterion-mediated condensation into bundles. Longer filamentous phage Pf1 was found to form viscoelastic gels at concentrations well below its theoretical isotropic–nematic transition in solutions containing multivalent counterions. Elisabeth M. Huisman, Qi Wen, Yu-Hsiu Wang, Katrina Cruz, Guntars Kitenbergs, Kaspars Ērglis, Andris Zeltinš, Andrejs Cēbers and Paul A. Janmey, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05553D.

Organic thin film transistors: The reason behind improved performance of organic thin film transistor devices with 6,13-(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) is investigated in this Hot Article. Aggregation and cluster formation of TIPS-pentacene was observed in solution well before the solubility limit. Marie-Beatrice Madec, Sean Butterworth, Pablo Taboada, Richard Heenan, Mark Geoghegan and Stephen G. Yeates, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 7065-7070, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05842H.

 Read these Hot Articles for free until 31 August >>>

Wrinkling of materials can generate periodic nano or microstructures that are crucial for technological applications. Here, the phenomena is studied in ultra thin layers where Van der Waals interactions determine the morphologies. Findings indicate that wrinkling might not be the best way to investigate chain dynamics in these systems… Hugues Vandeparre, Simon Desbief, Roberto Lazzaroni, Cyprien Gay and Pascal Damman, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 6878-6882, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05411B

Holograms of colloidal spheres  were recorded with holographic video microscopy and analyzed with light scattering theory. Individual spheres’ sizes and refractive indexes were measured with part-per-thousand resolution, which was used to estimate each sphere’s porosity. Characterisation of single colloidal spheres is important for applications such as medical diagnostics and photonics. Fook Chiong Cheong, Ke Xiao, David J. Pine and David G. Grier, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 6816-6819, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05577A

Droplet-induced budding in biological membranes is when a liquid drop on the surface of the membrane transforms from being partially wrapped to completely wrapped (see below). This cellular process is important for endocytosis (for communication between organelles) and viral replication. Here, a novel budding mechanism where the driving force is the interfacial tensions between the aqueous phases is investigated. Halim Kusumaatmaja and Reinhard Lipowsky, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 6914-6919, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05499F