9 search results for “biological soft matter physics” in the Public website
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Biological and Soft Matter Physics
Research groups in the Biological & Soft Matter Programme unravel mechanisms in biological processes and develop novel bio-inspired soft materials.
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Assembling anisotropic colloidal building blocks
This PhD-thesis presents a study on micron-sized particles, so-called colloids. By controlling the chemical and physical properties of these particles, such as the interparticle interaction and the particles’ shape, colloids can act as building blocks that self-assembly into larger structures.
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Michel OrritScience
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Elastic Leidenfrost Effect enables soft engines
Water droplets float in a hot pan because of the so-called Leidenfrost effect. Now physicists have discovered a variation: the Elastic Leidenfrost effect. It explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making high pitched sounds. Publication in Nature Physics on July 24.
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Building with flexible blocks
On an apparently normal cube a pattern of hollows and bulges appears when the cube is compressed. A method has been developed to design such three-dimensional structures and to construct these using simple building blocks. Publication in Nature.
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Tiny clumps recycle themselves into complex structures
Manufacturers produce high-end technology mostly top-down with large machinery, but small particles are able to build structures by themselves from the bottom up. A major challenge is that these particles easily clump together. Leiden physicist Daniela Kraft has developed a method to use this phenomenon…
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Bouncing gel balls popular in the media
The explanation from physicist Scott Waitukaitis for the screaming and bouncing gel balls in a hot pan has been covered in several media, including the Washington Post.
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Self-folding metamaterial
The more complex the object, the harder it is to fold up. Space satellites often need many small motors to fold up an instrument, and people have difficulty simply folding up a roadmap. Physicists from Leiden and Amsterdam have now designed a structure that folds itself up in several steps. Publication…
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One-way traffic for motion in new material
Scientists have developed a material that breaks one of the fundamental principles governing many physical systems. Ordinary materials transmit external forces equally, no matter where the pressure comes from. The newly developed material breaks this rule and could potentially be of interest in soft-robotics…