Soft Matter Blog

Coupled oscillations in a 1D emulsion of Belousov–Zhabotinsky droplets. This article by Jorge Delgado, Ning Li, Marcin Leda, Hector O. González-Ochoa, Seth Fraden and Irving R. Epstein reports the use of a programmable illumination source to control the boundary and initial conditions of arrays of small numbers of non-linear, oscillating, micron-sized Belousov–Zhabotinsky droplets. The team say that in these small collections of droplets, transient patterns decay rapidly and they observe several more complex attractors, including ones in which some adjacent droplets are in-phase. (Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01240H, Advance Article)

Interested to know more? Why not read the full article for free:

To help develop metal binding molecules for nanoscale electronics, sensors, and biomedical devices, a team based in the USA has investigated the adsorption of amino acids and surfactants onto a gold surface. Using molecular dynamics simulations, the team investigated the mechanism and strength of the interactions. They say that the adsorption strength correlates with the degree of coordination of polarizable atoms (O, N, C) to multiple epitaxial sites, and therefore, the molecular size and geometry rather than the specific chemistry determine the adsorption energy.

Fancy knowing more? Read the article for free until 15th February 2011. 

Jie Feng, Ras B. Pandey, Rajiv J. Berry, Barry L. Farmer, Rajesh R. Naik and Hendrik Heinz, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01118E (Advance Article)

The crystallization behavior of colloidal cubes has been studied using tunable depletion interactions by a team at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and New York University, USA. The team found that under certain conditions the cubes self-organize into crystals with a simple cubic symmetry, which is set by the size of the depletant.

Read the article for free until the 14th February: Laura Rossi, Stefano Sacanna, William T. M. Irvine, Paul M. Chaikin, David J. Pine and Albert P. Philipse, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0SM01246G (Advance Article)

Whether the extended law of corresponding states can be applied to equilibrium and non equilibrium features of the state diagram of a globular protein has been investigated by a team based in Switzerland and Sweden. The team say that for the globular protein lysozyme, the binodal and spinodal lines are governed by the integral features of the interaction potential, but the arrest line is mainly determined by the contact value.

Read the full paper (free until 9th February) here: Thomas Gibaud, Frédéric Cardinaux, Johan Bergenholtz, Anna Stradner and Peter Schurtenberger, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01175D (Advance Article)

Wolfgang Meier discusses the emerging area of solid-supported polymeric membranes. Fancy knowing more? Read the full article for free until 8th February.

Serena Belegrinou, Sindhu Menon, Dominik Dobrunz and Wolfgang Meier, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0SM01163K  (Advance Article)