Engineering responses of soft materials at hierarchical time and length scales is of great interest to both fundamental science and technological applications. In recent years, the hybridization between emerging soft condense matters and conventional hard condense matters keeps enriching the materials library of humankind and opens another largely-uncharted venue for innovating the design of soft materials with controlled responses, which has great potential future applications compatible with living systems. This work demonstrates some preliminary efforts of engineering soft materials at different scales to achieve controlled responses to various external stimuli, and ultimately lead to the desired properties and functionalities. Utilizing a combination of experimental, computational and theoretical approaches, this work focuses on deciphering the fundamental mechanisms behind each observed phenomena and developing theoretical frameworks for better assisting the design of responsive soft materials. With deepening understanding of those materials, increasing number of natural/synthetic soft materials are expected to be engineered in the future for the continual development of technology.

Creator

• Yuan, Hang

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-gxyq-ak41

Subject

• Physics
• Materials Science
• Computational physics

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:16039
• etdadmin_upload_900796

Keyword

• Collective Behavior
• Soft Materials
• Stimuli-responsive Materials
• Active Colloids
• Active Matter
• Stokesian Dynamics

Date created

• 2022-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright