Soft Matter最新文献

{"title":"Ionic-content-driven restructuring of spirobisindane ionene networks: implications for mechanics, self-healing, and gas transport","authors":"Fatemeh Sabokroozroozbahani, Sudhir Ravula, Alain Tundidor Camba, Pravin S. Shinde, Jong Keum, Jason E. Bara and Jihong A. Ma","doi":"10.1039/D6SM00105J","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D6SM00105J","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) offer exceptional gas permeability but remain brittle and susceptible to physical aging, limiting their durability in separation applications. Here, we introduce a reconfigurable microporous polymer network that uniquely integrates permanent PIM microporosity with autonomous, intrinsic self-healing driven by imidazolium-based ionic motifs. Spirobisindane units generate the intrinsic free-volume architecture, while an imidazolium-containing polyamide ionene supplies dynamic ionic and hydrogen-bonding interactions that reorganize under mild activation. Incorporation of imidazolium-based ionic liquids further tunes cohesion, mobility, and densification, enabling the network to relax, re-associate, and retain microporosity without structural collapse. Through a comprehensive multiscale approach combining spectroscopy, scattering, thermal and mechanical characterization with all-atom molecular dynamics and density functional theory calculations, we elucidate how ionic content, as a single control parameter that reshapes free-volume distributions, modulates local coordination environments, and governs relaxation and healing kinetics. At intermediate ionic loadings, the networks achieve rapid, repeatable self-healing while maintaining CO<small>₂</small> selectivity, demonstrating an optimal balance between segmental mobility and structural integrity. By establishing how hierarchical ionic interactions couple structure, dynamics, and transport in microporous ionene networks, this work provides generalizable design rules for adaptive soft-matter systems that require simultaneous mechanical resilience, reconfigurability, and selective gas transport.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 14","pages":" 2608-2622"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d6sm00105j?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147429483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Response to dynamic shape changes in suspensions of hard rectangles","authors":"Denis Dertli and Thomas Speck","doi":"10.1039/D6SM00037A","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D6SM00037A","url":null,"abstract":"<p >While the autonomous assembly of hard nanoparticles with different shapes has been studied extensively both in experiments and simulations, little is known about systems where particle shape can be dynamically altered. DNA origami nanostructures offer an alternative route to synthesize nanoparticles that can change their shape on demand. Motivated by recent experiments, here we study the structure and dynamics of suspensions of hard squares in response to an elongation into a rectangle. Performing dynamic hard-particle Monte Carlo simulations at constant volume and employing two protocols, we numerically analyze the collective diffusion and ordering during the shape change and the subsequent relaxation towards the new equilibrium state. We find that the cascading protocol, which mimics experimentally realized DNA origami, can become dynamically arrested due to the increase in effective packing fraction.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 12","pages":" 2447-2455"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d6sm00037a?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147429491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tunable thin elasto-drops","authors":"A. Eddi, S. Perrard and J. Zhang","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01192B","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01192B","url":null,"abstract":"<p >We present an experimental method to fabricate centimetric thin elastic capsules with a highly uniform thickness and negligible bending stiffness using silicone elastomers. In our experiments, the capsule thickness is tunable at fabrication, while internal pressure and hoop (circumferential) stress are adjustable <em>via</em> hydrostatic inflation once the capsules are filled and immersed in water. Capsule mechanics are probed through hydro-elastic waves generated by weak mechanical perturbations at the capsule interface. By analyzing the surface wave dynamics in the Fourier domain, we extract the in-plane stress and demonstrate that the hydro-elastic waves are exclusively governed by hoop stress. This provides a controllable macroscopic analogue of liquid drops characterised by an effective surface tension, allowing the capsules to be modeled as large-scale “elasto-drops” with an inflation and thickness tunable effective surface tension. In this limit, bending stiffness is negligible over the experimentally relevant wavelengths, so that the shell dynamics are governed primarily by in-plane tension. Our work demonstrates that elasto-drops serve as a robust model system for parametric studies of large-scale analogues of liquid drops with experimentally adjustable surface tension.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 15","pages":" 2793-2799"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d5sm01192b?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147462425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Softening of shear-thickening in suspensions by the addition of large particles","authors":"Alice Pelosse and Heinrich M. Jaeger","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01144B","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01144B","url":null,"abstract":"<p >This study investigates the rheological behavior of shear-thickening suspensions made with different types of small particles upon the addition of much larger particles referred to as granules. The size ratio ranges from 20 to 120. We examine the effects of granule size, volume fraction, and surface properties on shear-thickening characteristics. Starting from a fumed silica suspension exhibiting discontinuous shear thickening (DST), the addition of granules at different volume fractions shifts the onset of thickening to lower shear rates. Concomitantly, the strength of the thickening, quantified by the thickening index, decreases, transitioning from DST to continuous shear thickening (CST). Comparison with suspensions of silica spheres reveals a similar trend, suggesting generality across different systems. These results contrast with the results of prior work on cornstarch-based and nanosilica sphere suspensions, where granule addition was found to enhance thickening. We discuss possible origins of these differences and propose a mechanism for the observed softening: when granules are much larger than the surrounding particles, they induce local variations in shear rate and disrupt the formation of an extended network of force chains. These findings highlight the critical role of particle size ratio in determining the rheology of complex suspensions, paving the way for tailoring material properties for industrial and scientific applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 12","pages":" 2379-2388"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d5sm01144b?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147300312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A solvent-topology perspective on hydrophobic aggregation","authors":"Vicente Domínguez-Arca","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01246E","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01246E","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Hydrophobic aggregation is often described in terms of effective attractive forces between apolar units. In aqueous and soft-matter environments, however, aggregation necessarily involves a collective reorganization of the solvent, whose connectivity and confinement properties may play a central role. Here we investigate a deliberately minimal lattice model in which hydrophobic (apolar) segments interact with the solvent only through a local restriction rule, without introducing explicit solute–solute attractions. Each lattice site is occupied either by solvent or by an apolar segment at a fixed composition. Solvent sites are classified as restricted when the local density of nearby apolar segments exceeds a prescribed threshold, and configurations are sampled with a Boltzmann-like weight that penalizes the total number of restricted-solvent sites. Within this framework, aggregation can only arise through the reorganization of solvent restriction fields. By decomposing the solvent into free and restricted subsets, we analyze their connectivity using standard percolation diagnostics alongside conventional measures of solute clustering. Baseline simulations reveal that while amphiphile aggregation evolves smoothly with concentration, the restricted-solvent subset can undergo a sharp, kernel-dependent connectivity crossover: for sufficiently isotropic interaction neighborhoods, restricted water becomes a system – spanning only over an intermediate range of solute fractions. Free solvent, by contrast, remains spanning across the explored parameter range. Notably, these solvent-topology signatures are significantly sharper and more structured than the corresponding solute-ordering metrics. A systematic extension to larger system sizes refines this picture. The onset of restricted-solvent spanning remains localized and kernel selective, while high-density behavior becomes smoother and more fluctuation dominated, consistent with finite-size effects. Importantly, the amount of restricted solvent grows monotonically and robustly with system size, whereas its global connectivity reorganizes nontrivially. Taken together, these results support a restrained interpretation of hydrophobic aggregation as a solvent-driven topological crossover rather than a sharp thermodynamic phase transition, highlighting solvent topology as a sensitive diagnostic even when solute ordering remains gradual.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 17","pages":" 3196-3206"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d5sm01246e?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147471940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatiotemporal mapping of microscale stiffness during collagen polymerization and crosslinking by optical multifrequency time-harmonic elastography","authors":"Frank Sauer, Jakob Jordan, Tom Meyer, Pedro Dantas de Moraes, Guillaume Flé, Josef A. Käs and Ingolf Sack","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01259G","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01259G","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Optical multifrequency time-harmonic elastography (OMTHE) was used for rapid mechanical characterization of extra-cellular matrix-derived collagen networks at micrometer resolution. OMTHE was optimized for point-wise shear wave excitation in small sample volumes and compared to tabletop magnetic resonance elastography (ttMRE) and optical intensity changes. Dynamic stiffening due to the fluid–gel transition during collagen polymerization and chemical crosslinking using glutaraldehyde was tracked by shear waves speed (SWS) at vibration frequencies between 3 and 10 kHz and frame rates up to 4 kHz. During collagen polymerization, after an initial lag phase, SWS increased on average 6 ± 3 min earlier than optical density, suggesting that a load-bearing percolating fiber network was established before fibril thickening enhanced light scattering. In contrast, chemical crosslinking showed a lag-free, SWS increase driven by the diffusion and subsequent action of the crosslinker from 1.7 ± 0.4 m s<small>⁻¹</small> to 2.5 ± 0.5 m s<small>⁻¹</small>, matching the relative SWS change from ground-truth ttMRE. In conclusion, OMTHE provides a unique research tool that quantifies biomechanical property changes in small biological samples with spatiotemporal resolutions of micrometers and seconds.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 11","pages":" 2279-2289"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147342987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rheological properties and shear-induced structures of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals","authors":"Ashish Chandra Das, Sathyanarayana Paladugu and Oleg D. Lavrentovich","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01207D","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01207D","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Recently discovered ferroelectric nematic (N<small>_F</small>) liquid crystals are fluids with a polar orientational order. The electric polarization vector can be aligned by an electric field and by surface anchoring. Here, we explore how the polarization field and effective viscosity of the N<small>_F</small> materials are affected by shear flows. We explore three N<small>_F</small> materials, abbreviated RM734, DIO, and a room-temperature FNLC919, all of which exhibit a paraelectric nematic (N) and an N<small>_F</small> phase. All materials show an increase in the effective viscosity upon cooling, with Arrhenius behavior in broad temperature ranges except near the phase transitions. In DIO and FNLC919, the antiferroelectric SmZ<small>_A</small> phase separating the N and N<small>_F</small> phases shows a strong dependence of the effective viscosity on the shear rate: this viscosity is lower than the viscosity of the N and N<small>_F</small> phases at high shear rates (<img> = 500 s<small>⁻¹</small>) but is much higher when the shear rate is low, <img> = 2.5 s<small>⁻¹</small>. The behavior is associated with the layered structure of the SmZ<small>_A</small> phase. All mesophases in all three materials exhibit shear-thinning behavior at low shear rates (&lt;100 s<small>⁻¹</small>) and a nearly Newtonian behavior at higher shear rates. In terms of alignment, we observe three regimes in the N and N<small>_F</small> phases: flow-alignment at low shear rates, <img> &lt; 10<small>²</small> s<small>⁻¹</small>, a log-rolling regime with the director and polarization along the vorticity axis at <img> &gt; 10<small>³</small> s<small>⁻¹</small>, and polydomain structures at intermediate rates. In the flow-aligning regime, the N<small>_F</small> polarization does not tilt away from the shear direction, which is in sharp contrast to the flow-induced tilt of the N director. The effect is attributed to the avoidance of splay deformations and associated space charge in the flowing N<small>_F</small>. The temperature and shear rate dependencies of the viscosity and the uncovered shear-induced structural effects of N<small>_F</small> advance our understanding of these materials and potentially facilitate their applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 16","pages":" 2967-2980"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d5sm01207d?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147466181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Model analysis of thixotropic polymer flow in extrusion-based additive manufacturing","authors":"Haifeng Zhang, Qinlei Luan, Wenjun Yuan, Dongjie Liu and Fei Chen","doi":"10.1039/D5SM01133G","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM01133G","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Material extrusion additive manufacturing (AM), which is utilized across a wide range of industries, necessitates the study of the extrusion and swelling of materials with complex rheological properties in the nozzle. This work aims to investigate the effects of physical parameters on the rheological properties of materials during extrusion. The rheology of thixotropic elastoviscoplastic (TEVP) fluids is predicted using the multi-lambda isotropic kinematic hardening (ML-IKH) model. Four different rheological models are initially examined to explore the distinctions between thixotropic behavior and other non-time-dependent rheological models. Results demonstrate that the interactions between the breakdown state and buildup state lead to stronger oscillations during the time evolution of the strands. Furthermore, the physical properties of the ink and structure of the nozzle are investigated to determine the rheology of the thixotropic fluid. Numerical results indicate that the rates of pressure and height change vary linearly with slopes of 49.3 and −12.8, respectively, for different elasticities and exhibit different patterns at varying yield stresses. Vortex analysis reveals that the maximum vortex area increases twice the minimum vortex area with increased elasticity. These findings demonstrate that the flow stability of thixotropic fluids is critically governed by structural parameters, with optimized configurations significantly suppressing flow instabilities and vortex formation. This research provides both qualitative and quantitative assessments of how structural and physical parameters influence the extrusion stability of thixotropic fluids. These findings offer crucial insights for optimizing nozzle design and printing parameters.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 10","pages":" 2171-2183"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147281273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Machine learning approaches to quantify nanoscale variations in the mechanical properties of soft nanoparticles","authors":"Benjamin Baylis and John R. Dutcher","doi":"10.1039/D5SM00943J","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5SM00943J","url":null,"abstract":"<p >We use machine learning to analyze atomic force microscopy-force spectroscopy (AFM-FS) measurements of the mechanical properties of soft nanoparticles on a hard substrate. We compare two approaches based on the manual selection of features that describe various aspects of the mechanical properties measured using AFM-FS – one that uses an extreme gradient boosting algorithm (supervised learning), and the other based on <em>k</em>-means clustering (unsupervised learning) to classify the force–distance curves according to the features. We used these approaches to generate two machine learning (ML) classifiers – one to differentiate between the soft nanoparticles and the hard substrate, and the other to identify structure within individual nanoparticles based on nanoscale variations in their mechanical properties. After training the classifiers on data from just two AFM images, we found that both approaches were successful in correctly identifying individual soft nanoparticles within the AFM-FS scans, whereas the supervised approach was more successful in correctly identifying and quantifying stiffer inner regions within the nanoparticles. The results of our study show that ML strategies can be used to accurately and efficiently characterize nanoscale variations in the mechanical properties of soft, biological materials.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 17","pages":" 3143-3155"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d5sm00943j?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147375412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Correction: Synthesis of anisotropic colloids with concave and convex structures","authors":"Longfei Luo, Chengcheng Liang, Hong Zhang, Yiwu Zong and Kun Zhao","doi":"10.1039/D6SM90025A","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D6SM90025A","url":null,"abstract":"<p >Correction for ‘Synthesis of anisotropic colloids with concave and convex structures’ by Longfei Luo <em>et al.</em>, <em>Soft Matter</em>, 2021, <strong>17</strong>, 10696–10702, https://doi.org/10.1039/D1SM01463C.</p>","PeriodicalId":103,"journal":{"name":"Soft Matter","volume":" 10","pages":" 2216-2216"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2026/sm/d6sm90025a?page=search","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147281287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}