Confining soft materials in a small space has a dramatic effect on the formation of fibre networks and their resulting properties.
Optical micrographs of the gels studied
Xiang Yang Liu and collaborators showed that the formation of fibre networks under volume confinement is independent of temperature and solute concentration. They need to do more studies to understand the mechanism but say that their work should help scientists design new soft functional materials on a micro-/nanometre scale.
Fancy delving some more into the results reported? Then why not download the communication* today and leave some comments on the blog below. Perhaps you have a question for the authors, or you could tell us what you found interesting about these results.
*This communication will be free to access until the 25th March 2011.
