Themed collection Soft Matter Open Access Spotlight

Condensate droplets arise from phase separation into two liquid phases α (white) and β (green). Vesicle membranes exposed to such droplets are divided up into two membrane segments (red and purple), which can form membrane nanotubes.

In this perspective, we discuss the fundamental mechanisms and the length scales responsible for the formation of micro- and nanoplastics (MNPLs), MNPL size, shape, and morphologies, their metrology, and open questions in the field.

Bacterial biofilms that grow under confinement can mechanically interact with their environment to generate various global geometries and forms of cellular patterning.

The co-assembly of nanometer- and submicrometer-sized colloidal particles can result in multi-component superstructures with unique properties.

Microcontact printing (μCP) is a versatile and low-cost technique for surface patterning, allowing for the fabrication of intricate designs with relative ease.

We review the recent theoretical and simulation studies on interactions between curvature-inducing proteins and membranes.

This review clarifies the structure–process–property relationship in PVA-based polarizers.

Nanoprecipitation is a versatile, low-energy technique for synthesizing nanomaterials through phase separation, enabling precise tuning of nanomaterial properties.

Ion-conducting polymers (ICPs) are gaining interest in various scientific and technological fields. This review highlights advancements in ICP thin films using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and addresses challenges of traditional methods.

This review explores network designs that address the trade-off between toughness and elasticity, offering strategies to develop materials with both high fracture resistance and low hysteresis for advanced applications.

This review is about drops of a liquid with high dielectric permittivity that slide over a solid surface with high electrical resistivity.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been introduced through detailed tutorials, accompanied by a code package, as a powerful technique suitable for versatile investigations in fluid mechanics and soft matter physics.

The spreading of a drop in a wedge shows anomalous diffusion scaling, with the diffusion exponent directly linked to the fluid's rheological properties.

In models of Pickering emulsion stabilisation, it is assumed that Young’s equation defines the angle of a solid particle at the oil/water interface. Here, we consider the implications for stability when the particle is displaced by an external force.

A method to extract gel-forming mucins from pig trachea is developed. These airway mucins form viscous gels resembling human airway mucus, making them a useful model for lung disease research.

Connecting active and passive monomers to form partially active polymers can lead to directed transport towards regions of high or low chemical concentration.

Multiple pathways exist for measuring Poisson’s ratio. Not all methods are appropriate for nearly incompressible materials.

Microparticles are released into water when plastic bottles undergo photodegradation under sunlight.

Catalytic chemical garden tubes self-propel in H₂O₂ droplets where spatial confinement induces spinning or rotation. Internal bubble growth enlarges the drop and triggers translational jumps upon bursting.

Polymer infiltration into nanoporous gold dynamically tunes the optical response of the nanocomposite. UV-vis spectroscopy and DDA show red-shifting of plasmon resonance as infiltration progresses, enabling in situ tracking of polymer dynamics.

Weakly charged, thermoresponsive microgels are studied in the presence and absence of salt focusing on the phase behavior in dense packings. Temperature-dependent phase diagrams for both states are derived.

The pressure saturation with depth is studied in submerged columns of grains denser and lighter than water. The total force acting on the particles is redirected towards the container walls, resulting in a buoyancy-driven Janssen effect.

Molecular mobility in renewable PEAz-b-PLA block copolymers.

Doxorubicin (DOX) was coloaded with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) into the core of a niosome (NS). On the application of a magnetic field the MNPs produced heat and released the DOX.

An ultra-thin, modular pneumatic system with integrated sensing and transmission enables precise control of folding structures, offering a scalable solution for reconfigurable robots with complex geometries.

Janus lipid vesicles exhibit run-and-tumble dynamics under AC fields, driven by membrane fluidity and lipid phase reconfiguration that transiently disrupts propulsion by altering domain asymmetry.

DDDG extracts membrane proteins together with native lipids into nanodiscs. These native nanodiscs perform comparably to MSP nanodiscs, with each method suiting different structural and functional studies.

We report dissipative rotation of oil-in-water biphasic droplets in optical tweezers. Rotation speed can be controlled by the laser power. Untrapped droplets can also be rotated indirectly.

Active metallo-dielectric Janus particles cause voltage-dependent nuclear electro-deformation, enabling in situ mechanical assessment via surface coverage, with simulations matching experiments using a fitted surface tension parameter.

This paper shows that the solvent phase separation near the contact line of a swollen solid is governed by the competition between osmosis and capillary action instead of the commonly believed competition between elasticity and capillary action.

We computationally study active mixtures with two distinct nonzero activities. We identify three regimes of emergent behaviors (e.g. enhanced avalanche events, microphase separation) and propose the microscopic physical mechanism giving rise to them.

Even poor machine learning predictions are useful as experimental guides. We us ML predictions on >50 000 granular clogging events to identify promising experiments which confirm and explain the important role of potential arch cornerstones.

The molecular dynamics of thin films and the adsorbed layer of poly(2-vinylpyridine) were investigated using broadband dielectric spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry.

We combine discrete element method simulations, evolutionary algorithms, and experiments to search for granular packings of variable modulus (VM) particles arranged in a triangular lattice with optimal bulk mechanical properties.

The adhesion energy (G_c) divided by the maximum elongation of the PSA layer (a_f), which is defined as the viscous dissipative energy density, and the strain rate has a linear relationship on a logarithmic scale, independent of the tape thickness.

The self-assembly and conformation in aqueous solution and bioactivity of three lipopeptides bearing lysine-rich tripeptide sequences are compared for C₁₆-KFK, C₁₆-KWK, and C₁₆-KYK, where C₁₆ denotes an N-terminal hexadecyl (palmitoyl) chain.

Under shear flow, filamentous tactoids undergo a double symmetry breaking in both shape and internal director field. The direction of the asymmetry switches when the mesoscopic chirality of the colloids is inverted, revealing how mesoscopic structure governs macroscopic behavior.

A novel family of symmetric squaramide-based LMWGs has been successfully used for the removal of organic dyes from water matrices.

We present a theoretical model of polyelectrolyte-grafted colloidal actuators, which can expand and contract in response to pH variations.

In this study we show how to guide, resize and reshape aligned domains in liquid crystal flow via designed microchannel geometry.

Optimal resetting protocols for active agents are determined by the intricate interplay of resetting, rotational Brownian noise, and active motion.

In a confined two-dimensional geometry shaken vertically, spinning rings immersed in spherical beads exhibit long-range, depletion-like entropic interactions—forming dimers at high bead concentration and repelling at low concentration.

We show that micellar solution properties of sodium lauryl ether sulphate surfactants can be described from the average properties of their building blocks. This offers critical insights in understanding and formulating complex surfactant systems.

E. coli swims by rotating a bundle of helical flagella and tumbles when one reverses its sense of rotation. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we show that near surfaces tumbling causes smaller reorientations and favors the in-plane forward direction.

This paper proposed a new theoretical framework to mathematically model defect motion by constructing integral curves defined from the director field of dry active nematic system based on complex analysis.

This study develops low-data machine learning models to predict thermodynamic properties of solid–solid transitions in plastic crystals, identifying key physical descriptors of these materials in sparse-data regimes.

Recently discovered materials have opened up the possibility of easily and repeatably altering the ratio among the elastic constants characterizing nematic liquid crystals.

For sufficiently thick PEMs of weak polyelectrolytes assembled in the non-linear growth regime, all-star PEMs showed higher Young’s modulus and were more affected by salt annealing than all-linear PEMs.

Droplet impact on granular beds shows two crater regimes set by splash appearance. The influence of grain diameter is unified by a new dimensionless number, capturing inertial dissipation through grain contacts.

Freedericksz transitions in the nematic and smectic ZA phases of DIO reveal important information about the elastic properties of this material.

In this study, Brownian dynamics simulations are implemented to investigate the motion of a bottom-heavy, charged Janus particle near a charged wall under varying shear flow conditions.

We uncover a new class of two-dimensional active systems with internal stresses which display long-range structural order and hyperuniformity. This notably includes models of two-dimensional biological tissues surrounded by a dissipative medium.

Piezoelectricity in biological soft tissues is a controversial issue with differing opinions.

Dense suspensions of Quincke random walkers exhibit turbulent-like flows mimicking those of bacterial suspensions.

Fire ant rafts dynamically self-organize to conserve energy by separating into active and inactive phases, through formation of stationary clusters that can dissolve rapidly under external stimuli, enabling a swift decentralized collective response.

SANS and rheology of synergistic SDS–DDAO mixed micelle solutions in the vicinity of the phase boundary exhibit pronounced correlations between structure factor, micelle elongation, and solution viscosity as a function of surfactant mixing ratio.

A locally modified restricted primitive model shows enhanced ion clustering, causing significant long-ranged double-layer forces comparable to experiments. These forces stem from cluster–cluster correlations, largely independent of the short-range potential form.

A rodlike nanoparticle lingers in larger pores of hydrogels, and quickly traverses smaller pores by longitudinal diffusion.

Suspensions of soft particles assemble into train-like structures when flowing in shallow rectangular channels. It is found that oscillatory flow facilitates a significant improvement in the ordered particle arrangements relative to steady flow.

The flow behavior of soft, wetted hydrogel particles is affected by the adhesive properties of the particles. We describe their adhesive properties and how adhesion affects their shear banding and dissipation across a range of confining stresses.

Snapshots showing the slab's movement over time with its boundaries (black line), center of mass X(t) (dashed line), and red/purple particles at source/sink interfaces. Colors persist to track particle positions over time.

This work provides a molecular-scale explanation for the increased activity and selectivity of lipase immobilized on silica at water/oil interfaces.

We use machine learning to predict single-cell motility in heterogeneous layers using shape features. Our model distinguishes low- from high-motility cells, with potential for physics-inspired predictions from static images of cell dynamics.

A comprehensive understanding of how fluoroalkyl side chains govern CO₂ solubility and diffusivity, ultimately impacting gas permeability, is achieved through complementary ATR-FTIR and QCM analyses.

The growth of microorganisms entrapped in hydrogels is important for biotechnological and natural processes. Using diatoms in agar as model system, this study shows that residual stress regulates the growth of microorganisms inside hydrogels.

PNIPAM-co-APMH microgels and microgel monolayers are investigated by the colloidal probe technique. We show how the microgel concentration affects the softness, charge and stability of the monolayers.

Phase-separated morphology plays a pivotal role in determining the potential applications of blend thin films. Machine learning-based classification framework is developed to predict the morphology of PS/PMMA blend thin films.

Our novel approach studies the relationship between grain morphology, intergranular friction, and the jamming packing fraction.

We develop the first experimental protocol to determine brain tissue's non-linear viscoelastic properties in torsion and validate the results with numerical simulations of the experiments using FEniCS.

Phase diagram for a magnetic polymer with Blume–Emery–Griffith spins, with snapshots (phases: swollen disordered, SD; compact ordered, CO; compact disordered, CD). These results may be relevant to understand epigenetic memory in chromatin.