Themed collection Soft Matter 15th Anniversary Perspectives

To emphasize, highlight and celebrate the various intellectual thread ideas in the research field, we have taken the occasion of our 15th anniversary to commission 15 thought leaders to write their personal perspectives on what they think is “cool”, and where they think their sub-field is evolving towards.

We report here on a peptide hydrogel system, which in contrast to most other such systems, is made up of relatively short fibrillar aggregates, discussing resemblance with colloidal rods.

This review and critique provides fundamental considerations and practical suggestions for fabricating new polymeric biosensors, drug delivery vehicles, and scaffolds for tissue regeneration with tunable molecular recognition properties.

We critically discuss the application of colloid science concepts to better understand protein solution properties in the entire concentration range.

No longer just the purview of artists and enthusiasts, origami engineering has emerged as a potentially powerful tool to create three dimensional structures on disparate scales.

In analogy to a Dali-style clock that suddenly breaks under gravitational stress, soft matter under a mechanical load may exhibit delayed failure. We discuss recent works unveiling microscopic precursors of failure in amorphous soft solids.

This contribution reviews the state of art on hybrid soft matter assemblies composed of inorganic nanoparticles (NP) and lamellar or non-lamellar lipid bilayers.

What is the collective behavior of mesoscopic (size ≈ 0.5 mm–50 cm) organisms/robots that swim or fly, such as plankton and small insects? In this perspective article we discuss the importance of studying active matter in fluids with finite inertia.

Recent neutron scattering and related results from simulation and other techniques on the microscopic dynamics of polymers under confinement are presented. Coexistence of dynamical phases in the confined polymer determines the macroscopic properties.

The structure and properties of macromolecules are dictated not only by the composition, but also by their topology, sequence, and dispersity.

We review advances in soft matter research based on liquid crystals, including recent studies of liquid crystals beyond equilibrium.

In this paper, we have outlined recent progress made in functional materials with self-healing properties and put forward insights from the perspectives of material healing mechanisms.

Surface topographies of various sizes, shapes, and spatial organization abound in nature.

We summarize the latest electrorheological (ER) materials along with their rheological understanding, and also provide a forward-looking summary of the potential applications of ER technology.

Multiscale molecular dynamics of open systems represents a powerful tool of investigation in soft matter.

Just as the innovation of electronic diodes that allow the current to flow in one direction provides a foundation for the development of digital technologies, the engineering of surfaces or devices that allow the directional and spontaneous transport of fluids, termed liquid diodes, is highly desired in a wide spectrum of applications ranging from medical microfluidics, advanced printing, heat management and water collection to oil–water separation.