Themed collection Soft Matter Most Popular 2020

Much of the science underpinning the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic lies in the soft matter domain.

Mechanophores are force-responsive molecules that have the potential to serve as stress sensors in various material systems. This review discusses recent scientific advances and critical challenges facing engineers regarding implementation of mechanophores in polymeric materials.

This review invites us to reconsider the way we look at interfaces: from a mere expression of intermolecular potentials to versatile processing parameters.

This review article provides practical, experimentally relevant details on six common types of active colloids useful for soft matter research.

We review recent progress in the science of polymeric complex coacervation.

Herein, very recent advances in polymer, peptide, and hybrid hydrogels for uses in photovoltaics, supercapacitor, organic electronics, drug delivery, tissue engineering, biosensing, cell culture, and different optoelectronic materials are discussed.

The development of new functional materials requires cutting-edge technologies for incorporating different functional materials without reducing their functionality.

Structural length scales within a fat crystal network, from TAG molecules packing into lamellae, crystalline nanoplatelets and fractal aggregates of nanoplatelets.

The latest achievements in the viscoelastic characterization of biological samples with AFM are reviewed from both methodological and theoretical sides.

This work provides a new experimental platform to simultaneously mimic the pH environment in the GI tract and characterize the degradation of a covalent adaptable hydrogel to determine viability of this material as an oral delivery vehicle.

To improve the understanding of phototaxis, we investigate the origin of our photocatalytic particles’ peculiar scotophobicity (fear of darkness).

Collagen, fibrinogen, and thrombin proteins in aqueous buffer solutions are widely used as precursors of natural biopolymers in three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting applications.

3D microprinting allows the preparation of colloidal microswimmers with unlimited shape complexity furthering the understanding of out-of-equilibrium phenomenon.

The size of a probe bead reported by holographic particle characterization depends on the proportion of the surface area covered by bound target molecules and so can be used as an assay for molecular binding.

First-passage time statistics of water molecules carries information about their interaction with proteins. This information allows reconstruction of water’s space-dependent mobility near protein surfaces.

Conductive traces of elastomer embedded with liquid metal droplets exhibit little change in electrical resistance when stretched to large strains. Computational modeling is performed to better understand this remarkable piezoresistive property.

Activity can also slow down the escape dynamics in dense environment by incorporating ruggedness in the energy landscape, as revealed in our analytical calculations.

The effect of solution processing conditions on the elasto-morphology of a bulk heterojunction layer reveals a trade-off between thermo-mechanical stability and performance in organic solar cells.

We experimentally investigate the evaporation kinetics of a sessile ferrofluid droplet placed on a soft substrate in the presence of a time-dependent magnetic field.

Nanoparticles (NPs) used for targeted delivery purposes are rapidly gaining importance in diagnostic and therapeutic fields.

Hierarchically structured aluminum superhydrophobic surfaces are prepared, and it is demonstrated that appropriate microstructural size scale is required to achieve improved droplet jumping and anti-frosting performance of the surfaces.

A novel workflow for the fabrication of inertial microfluidic devices based on the wax 3D printing method.

Multiple energy dissipating modes are introduced into a model network hydrogel by metallo-supramolecular bonds and regulated by their association thermodynamics.

Moisture that competes with dipicolylamine to bind Eu dynamically controls the mechanical and optical properties of polymer films, as well as their self-healing efficiency.

Seawater-enhanced tough APNC gel used for anti-adhesion and oil/water separation.

Study of change in surface morphology and wettability of biomimetic hydrophobic surfaces submerged in acidic, basic and neutral media for different durations over a prolonged period of time.

We cross-correlate the hydration-dependent structure and properties – microscopic and macroscopic – of a thin Nafion ionomer film on an electrochemically pertinent Pt substrate.

Epoxy–polydimethylsiloxane–graphene oxide (EPG) nanocomposite coatings were synthesized by loading different wt% of graphene oxide nanosheets (GNs) into an epoxy–hydroxy-terminated-polydimethylsiloxane (EP–hPD) matrix through in situ polymerization.

Direct observation of vesicle conformational dynamics in extensional flow and precise characterization of flow phase diagrams using a Stokes trap.

Novel Ti₃C₂/polyacrylamide nanocomposite hydrogels with excellent mechanical and drug release performances were fabricated via in situ polymerization, employing ultralow content Ti₃C₂ nanosheets as crosslinkers instead of organic crosslinkers.