Modeling Microgels with a Controlled Structure across the Volume Phase Transition

Thermoresponsive microgels are soft colloids that find widespread use as model systems for soft matter physics. Their complex internal architecture, made of a disordered and heterogeneous polymer network, has been so far a major challenge for computer simulations. In this work, we put forward a coarse-grained model of microgels whose structural properties are in quantitative agreement with results obtained with small-angle X-ray scattering experiments across a wide range of temperatures, encompassing the volume phase transition. These results bridge the gap between experiments and simulations of individual microgel particles, paving the way to theoretically address open questions about their bulk properties with unprecedented nano- and microscale resolution.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Macromolecules

• Publication date

  2019-01-31

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Materials Science, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1021/acs.macromol.9b01122arXiv 1901.11495PMID 31656322PMCID 6812067
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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