A collection of papers from the International Symposium on Complex and Supermolecular Fluids presents tutorials and minireviews focusing on the physical properties of complex fluids using the concepts and techniques of condensed matter physics. Stresses the unifying principles, rather than chemical details, behind the physics of diverse materials. Principal topics include colloids, microemulsions, ferrofluids, and micellar systems. Characterizes supermolecular and complex fluids by exploiting their analogies to atomic systems. Papers organized by physical phenomena and not by material.
This book gives a comprehensive description of the physical properties of lyotropic liquid crystals. Structural features, phase transitions and phase diagrams are discussed in detail. The available experimental data on lyotropic mixtures is presented in the unifying context of the Landau theories. This phenomenological approach is used for establishing connections between structural properties and phase diagrams. The book is suitable for use as a pedagogical introduction to the subject.
This volume focuses on the area of the physics of complex systems and provides both an overview of the field and more detailed examination of those topics within the field that are currently of greatest interest to researchers. The properties of complex systems play an important role in a variety of different and overlapping areas in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and technology. The research field of complex systems is very broad, but this volume attempts to be comprehensive. This book is a useful reference work for researchers in this area, whether graduate students or advanced academics. Up-to-date reviews of cutting-edge topics are provided, compiled by leading authorities and designed to both broaden the reader's insight and encourage the exploration of new problems in related fields. An overview of the present status of the physics of complex systems is provided on the following general topics: (1) scaling behaviours; (2) supramolecular systems; (3) aggregation, aggregation kinetics and disorderly growth mechanisms; (4) granularly matter; (5) polymers, associating polymers, polyelectrolytes and gels; (6) amphiphiles, emulsions, colloids, membranes and interface phenomena; (7) molecular motors; (8) phase separation and out of equilibrium dynamics; (9) turbulence, chaos and chaotic dynamics; (10) glass transition, supercooled fluids and (11) geometrically constrained dynamics.
In this volume, the problems of pattern formation in physics, chemistry and other related fields in complex and nonlinear dissipative systems are studied. Main subjects discussed are formation mechanisms, properties, statistics, characterization and dynamics of periodic and nonperiodic patterns in the electrohydrodynamics in liquid crystals, Rayleigh-Benard convection, crystallization, viscous fingering and Belouzov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction. Recent developments in topological and defect-mediated chaos, chaos in systems with large degrees of freedom and turbulence-turbulence transitions are also discussed.
Between June 6-10, 1988, the Third Chemical Congress of North America was held at the Toronto Convention Center. At this rare gathering, fifteen thousand scientists attended various symposia. In one of the symposia, Professor Pierre-Gilles de Gennes of College de France was honored as the 1988 recipient of the Amer ican Chemical Society Polymer Chemistry Award, sponsored by Mobil Chemical Corporation. For Professor de Gennes, this international setting could not be more fitting. For years, he has been a friend and a lecturer to the world scientific community. Thus, for this special occasion, his friends came to recount many of his achievements or report new research findings mostly derived from his theories or stimulated by his thoughts. In this volume of Proceedings, titled New Trends in Physics and Physical Chemistry of Polymers, we are glad to present the revised papers for the Symposium and some contributed after the Symposium. In addition, we intend to include most of the lively discussions that took plaGe during the conference. This volume contains a total of thirty-six papers divided into six parts, primarily according to the nature of the subject matter: • Adsorption of Colloids and Polymers. • Adhesion, Fractal and Wetting of Polymers. • Dynamics and Characterization of Polymer Solutions. • Diffusion and Interdiffusion of Polymers. • Entanglement and Reptation of Polymer Melts and Networks. • Phase Transitions and Gel Electrophoresis.
During the last decade there has been a renewed interest in research on supramolecular assemblies in solutions, such as micelles and microemulsions, not only because of their extensive applications in industries dealing with catalysts, detergency, biotechnology, and enhanced oil recovery, but also due to the development of new and more powerful experimental and theoretical tools for probing the microscopic behavior of these systems. Prominent among the array of the newly available experimental techniques are photon correlation spectroscopy, small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering, and neutron spin-echo and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies. On the theoretical side, the traditionally emphasized thermodynamic approach to the study of the phase behavior of self-assembled systems in solutions is gradually being replaced by statistical mechanical studies of semi-micro scopic and microscopic models of the assemblies. Since the statistical mechanical approach demands as its starting point the microscopic struc tural information of the self-assembled system, the experimental determina tion of the structures of micelles and microemulsions becomes of paramount interest. In this regard the scattering techniques mentioned above have played an important role in recent years and will continue to do so in the future. In applying the scattering techniques to the supramolecular species in solution, one cannot often regard the solution to be ideal. This is because the inter-aggregate interaction is often long-ranged since it is coulombic in nature and the interparticle correlations are thus appreciable.
It is difficult to imagine how our highly evolved technological society would function, or how life would even exist on our planet, if polymers did not exist. The intensive study of polymeric systems, which has been under way for several decades, has recently yielded new insights into the properties of assemblies of these complex molecules and the physical principles that govern their behavior. These developments have included new concepts to describe aspects of the many body behavior in these systems, microscopic analyses that bring our understanding of these systems much closer to our understanding of simple liquids and solids, and the discovery of novel chemistry that these molecules can catalyze. This special topic volume of Advances in Chemical Physics surveys a number of these recent accomplishments. Supplemented with more than 250 illustrations, it provides a significant, up-to-date selection of papers by inter-nationally recognized researchers. Topics include: * Theory of Polyelectrolyte Solutions * Star Polymers: Experiment, Theory, and Simulation * Tethered Polymer Layers * Living Polymers * Transport and Kinetics in Electroactive Polymers Self-contained, authoritative, and timely, Polymeric Systems makes the cutting edge of polymer research available to scientists in every branch of chemical physics. Contributors to POLYMERIC SYSTEMS JEAN-LOUIS BARRAT, Departement de Physique des Materiaux, Universite Claude Bernard-Lyon l, France A. BAUMGARTNER, Institut fur Festkorperforschung, Germany M. A. CARIGNANO, Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana LEWIS J. FETTERS, Corporate Research Science Laboratories, Exxon Research and Engineering Company, Annandale, New Jersey SANDRA C. GREER, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park GARY S. GREST, Corporate Research Science Laboratories, Exxon Research and Engineering Company, Annandale, New Jersey JOHN S. HUANG, Corporate Research Science Laboratories, Exxon Research and Engineering Company, Annandale, New Jersey JEAN-FRANCOIS JOANNY, Institut Charles Sadron, France MICHAEL E. G. LYONS, Electroactive Polymer Research Group, Physical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Dublin, Ireland M. MUTHUKUMAR, Department of Polymer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts DIETER RICHTER, Institut fur Festkorperforschung, Germany I. SZLEIFER, Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Phase Transition Dynamics, first published in 2002, provides a fully comprehensive treatment of the study of phase transitions. Building on the statistical mechanics of phase transitions, covered in many introductory textbooks, it will be essential reading for researchers and advanced graduate students in physics, chemistry, metallurgy and polymer science.
