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

软物质是指诸如聚合物、液晶、表面活性剂溶液、胶体悬浮液和脂质的材料。这些材料通常存在于塑料、药品、食品和生物材料中。这些材料最有趣的特性之一是它们能够自组装成复杂的分层结构，并在许多长度尺度上有序排列。自组装分层结构材料对先进材料至关重要，更重要的是，对生物有机体来说，我们是复杂自组装的完美例子。该研究的目的是发展基于分子的理论来解释和预测自组装软材料的出现，稳定性和物理性能。从我们的研究中获得的知识将是一个有利因素，在工程负担得起的纳米结构软材料与所需的性能，如药物输送车辆和数据存储介质的应用。 分层结构的软物质的形成涉及具有不同物理属性（如大小、形状和刚性）的构建块。这些结构单元通常通过复杂的相互作用如分子缔合和长程静电相互作用相互作用。理解这些不同因素之间的相互作用需要发展新的理论框架和技术。本论文的主要研究内容包括：（1）多嵌段共聚物的结构与相转变，重点研究多级有序结构的发生;（2）含刚性组分聚合物体系的相行为，重点研究分子构象对自组装相的影响;（3）聚合物络合作用的影响，重点是如何通过缔合有目的地操纵自组装结构;（4）两亲性溶液的结构和形态，重点是多组分膜的形成和性能。

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.