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Fernandez-Nieves and co-workers describe the use of hydrostatic pressure to change the size and structure of poly-(N-isopropylacrylamide) based microgel particles. These changes rely on changes in the miscibility of the polymer in the solvent. Pressure was found to play an analogous role to temperature in swelling of the gels. Juan José Liétor-Santos, Benjamín Sierra-Martín, Urs Gasser and Alberto Fernández-Nieves, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05328K
The viscous drag friction acting on fluid drops in confined geometries is a fundamental issue when dealing with small amounts of liquid. Researchers have established unexpectedly simple scaling laws for viscous drag friction in different regimes, replacing the well-known Stokes’ friction law. Ayako Eri and Ko Okumura, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01535K
Supramolecular assembly is demonstrated to efficiently control the microdomain orientation in block copolymer thin films. The effect of low-molecular-weight additives on the microdomain orientation was investigated. At low grafting density the microdomains are parallel to the surface, while above a critical grafting density they switch to perpendicular. Chih-Hung Lee and Shih-Huang Tung, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05334E
