Conveners
T3-1 Soft Matter PM-1 (DCMMP) | Matière molle PM-1 (DPMCM)
- Joerg Rottler (UBC)
The packing of spheres is an interesting problem in mathematics and physics with a long history dated back to the work of Kepler and Lord Kelvin. In recent years, intricate periodic and aperiodic spherical packing phases have emerged in a host of soft matter systems including supramolecular assemblies, surfactants and block copolymers, underscoring the universality of emergent order in...
A brush-like structure emerges from the stretching of long polymer chains, densely grafted on to the surface of an impermeable substrate. This structure arises from a competition between the entropic elasticity of grafted polymer chains, and the intra and interchain excluded volume repulsion. Classical studies on polymer brushes focus on the structure of a brush, monomer density,...
While perfluorinated polymers dominate the commercial fuel cell industry, hostility to catalysts, difficult and expensive synthetic routes, and challenging disposal hamper wide adoption of fuel cell technology and impede further development. Hydrocarbon-based membranes utilize simple, well-developed synthetic routes that allow for rapid material development. We have investigated a promising...
Myelin is the fatty insulating material that covers nerve axons in white matter brain tissue and spinal cord. A number of neurodegenerative diseases, the most prominent of which is multiple sclerosis, are associated with damage to myelin with consequent degradation of neuronal signal transmission and functional impairment. A number of magnetic resonance imaging techniques have been developed...