Conveners
T4-1 Soft Matter PM-2 (DCMMP) | Matière molle PM-2 (DPMCM)
- James Harden (University of Ottawa)
The diffusion of macromolecules in cells and in complex fluids is often found to deviate from simple Fickian diffusion, and to have a strong dependence on lengthscale. Yet protein diffusion measurements usually only probe a narrow range of lengthscales. To circumvent this issue, we use variable-lengthscale fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (VLS-FCS), where the size of the volume of...
One of the basic characteristics of linear dsDNA molecules is its persistence length, typically of order 50 nanometers. The DNA chain inflicts a large energy penalty if it is bent sharply at that length scale. Viruses of bacteria, known as bacteriophage, typically have a dimension of a few tens of nanometers, of similar order of the magnitude as the DNA persistence length. Yet, it is known...
Stochastic thermodynamics of mesoscale systems has been extensively studied using a dragged colloidal particle in a trap as a model system. The colloid is assumed to be a massive Brownian particle that undergoes stochastic motion governed by a Langevin-type equation. The Langevin description of the colloidal motion however completely ignores the hydrodynamic coupling of the colloid to the heat...
With the advent of robust nanoscale fabrication, the study of soft matter has become intertwined with nano- and microfluidic device design. Applications range from building nanoscale devices with which to isolate single biomolecules, to studying colloidal particles in nano- to microchannels. Modeling and simulation of soft matter have followed this shift and have become powerful tools both for...
