Soft Matter Blog

Phase diagrams of rod-coil block copolymers using wormlike chain SCFT were constructed by scientists at Fudan University, China, and McMaster University, Canada, to explore the effects of interplay between microphase separation and orientational interaction on microstructures.

The team led by Ping Tang found that the stability of the monolayer and bilayer smectic phases is associated with the competition between interfacial energy and coil-stretching entropy, which strongly depends on the interplay between orientational interaction and microphase separation and the topological disparity between the semiflexible and coil blocks.

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Molecular fluctuations in a liquid crystalline polyrotaxane have been studied by Japanese scientists. The team from The University of Tokyo and Shibaura Institute of Technology used dielectric spectroscopy to investigate a polyrotaxane (CB5PR) consisting of poly(ethylene glycol) and α-cyclodextrins chemically modified with mesogenic cyanobiphenyl groups.

Read the full article for free here: Aoi Inomata, Masatoshi Kidowaki, Yasuhiro Sakai, Hideaki Yokoyama and Kohzo Ito, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM00930J

A strategy for inducing two-dimensional crystallization of charged nanoparticles on oppositely charged fluid interfaces has been developed by US scientists.

The team led by Masafumi Fukuto and Lin Yang at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, used in situ X-ray scattering measurements at the liquid–vapor interface to investigate the assembly of cowpea mosaic virus on positively charged lipid monolayers.

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Sumit Kewalramani, Suntao Wang, Yuan Lin, Huong Giang Nguyen, Qian Wang, Masafumi Fukuto and Lin Yang, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0SM00956C

A photonic crystal material based on a gelated colloidal crystalline array has been made by a team of Chinese scientists.

The gelated colloidal crystalline array is easy to make and shape and efficiently diffracts visible light. The diffraction wavelength can be tuned anywhere within the visible spectrum simply by varying the concentration of the crystalline colloidal array or by stretching the material. This change could be easily seen by the naked eye they claim.

The team led by Yihua Zhu at the University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China, made the gelated colloidal crystalline array from PVA hydrogel/colloidal crystalline array composites using an organic solvent. These physically cross-linked PVA gels can be dissolved and rebuilt as the temperature is cycled.

Read the full article for free here:  Cheng Chen, Yihua Zhu, Hua Bao, Peng Zhao, Hongliang Jiang, Liming Peng, Xiaoling Yang and Chunzhong Li, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0SM00923G