Phys 6013 - Soft Matter Physics
Time and Place:
C-3067, Wed and Fri, 10.30am - 12 noon
First class on Wed, Sep 9, 2015
Course Materials: Assignments and Readings
Instructor:
Anand Yethiraj, CP-3029, phone 2113, Email: anand_AT_physics.mun.ca
Text:
Required:
- R. A. L. Jones, "Soft Condensed Matter", Oxford University Press, 2002.
References (not necessary to purchase):
- David Sidebottom, "Condensed Matter and Crystalline Physics", Cambridge University Press, 2012.
- Rob Phillips, Jane Kondev, Julie Theriot, “Physical Biology of the Cell", Garland Science Press, 2008.
Evaluation
- Assignments: (40%) (the last one being due at the end of the last-but-one week of class)
- Term test: 20 %
- Final project (In-class presentation and report): 20 % (presentations in the last 2 weeks of class)
- Final exam: 20 %
Course Outline
This course introduces the essential principles of soft matter physics. This includes a wide range of materials, colloids, liquid crystals, polymers, surfactants, gels, and biomaterials such as proteins, lipids and cells.
Project: In-class presentation
During the course, each student will present 1 full-length in-class presentation in lecture format on an assigned topic. Project requirements will include an in-class presentation of an assigned reading as well as a written report (using latex). This could be a chapter in a book, or a review article, and will be assigned early in the course. These presentations will take place in the last 2 weeks of the course.
Detailed guidelines will be posted on the Course Materials page (which will be periodically updated).
Introduction to soft matter
- What is soft condensed matter?
- Colloids, polymers, amphiphiles, liquid crystals
- Forces, energies, timescales
Experimental connection: rheology
- viscosity and visco-elasticity
Scattering
- Scattering theory
- Scattering techniques in soft matter
- Analysis of scattering data
Phase transitions
- Liquid-liquid unmixing
- Spinodal decomposition
- Nucleation and growth
Colloids
- Colloidal interactions
- Excluded volume, depletion interactions
- van der Waals attractions, electrostatics, ions, and DLVO.
- Tunable colloids and applications
Random walks and polymers
- Random walks and the structure of macromolecules
- Random walks and dynamics
Experimental connection: microscopies
- Brownian motion
Focus topics and final project topics
- Water
- Directed motions: swimming in low-Reynolds-number liquids [reading: Purcell]
- Diffusion in crowded environments
- Liquid crystal phases
- Gels
- Proteins, polyelectrolytes, polymer brushes...
- Glass transition, Kauzmann paradox