Topics in Soft Condensed Matter Theory: From Macromolecules to Hierarchically Structured Soft Materials

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Soft matter refers to materials such as polymers, liquid crystals, surfactant solutions, colloidal suspensions, and lipids. These materials are commonly found in plastics, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs and biomaterials. One of the most intriguing properties of these materials is their ability to self-assemble into complex hierarchical structures with ordering over many length scales. Self-assembled hierarchically structured materials are paramount to advanced materials, and more importantly, to biological organisms as we are the perfect example of complex self-assembly. The objective of the proposed research is to develop molecule-based theories to explain and predict the emergence, stability and physical properties of self-assembled soft materials. The knowledge gained from our research will be an enabling factor in the engineering of affordable nanostructured soft materials with desired properties for applications such as drug delivery vehicles and data storage media. The formation of hierarchically structured soft matter involves building blocks with diverse physical attributes such as size, shape and rigidity. These building blocks often interact via complex interactions such as molecular association and long-range electrostatic interaction. Understanding the interplay between these diverse factors demands the development of new theoretical frameworks and techniques. The proposed research focuses on a few inter-related projects to answer this demand: (1) The structure and phase transition of multi-block copolymers, focusing on the occurrence of hierarchically ordered structures; (2) The phase behavior of polymeric systems containing rigid components, focusing on the effects of molecular conformation on the self-assembled phases; (3) The effect of polymer complexation, focusing on how self-assembly structures can be purposefully manipulated by association; and (4) The structure and morphology of amphiphilic solutions, focusing on the formation and properties of multicomponent membranes.