Soft and Biological Matter
Tuesday and Wednesday 10-12; Aula 8 --- Thursday 14-16. Aula 8
ATTENTION !!!
Tuesday Jan 9 at h10 Aula 8.
Nicoletta Gnan : Going out of equilibrium and coming back: the case of active matter.
Wednesday Jan 10 at h10 Aula 8
Cristiano De Michele: Nematic Phenomena
John Russo: How to solve interesting problems in self-assembly
Lecture Notes
Forces among atoms and molecules
Water and Hydrophobic interaction
Introduction to polymer physics
Introduction to percolation theory: on the way to gels
1D-Ising Model, DNA and Proteins
Proteins Phase Diagram (Emanuela Zaccarelli)
Liquid-Liquid Phase Transitions in Cells (Lorenzo Rovigatti)
Seminario Prof. Lorenzo Rovigatti AA 2023-2024
Seminario Dr. Nicoletta Gnan AA 2023-2024
1. How atoms, molecules, macromolecules (proteins, polymers), colloidal particles interact
• Which forces are important – Charges
– Dipoles
– Polarizability
• What happens if particles interact in a medium
• Water !
– Thermodynamic of water – Hydrogen Bond
– Hydrophobic effect
• Forces between macroscopic objects
– Energetic Interactions
– Entropic Interactions
∗ Osmotic Pressure
∗ Depletion Interactions
∗ Combinatorial Entropy
– Electrostatic interactions
∗ Poisson-Boltzmann
∗ Debye-Huckel
∗ Interaction between charged surfaces
∗ Gouy-Chapman-Stern electric double layer
∗ DLVO
2. Polymers
• Conformation of a chain
– Random walk model
– Ideal Chain
– freely joined chain
– freely rotating chain
– worm like chain
– Gyration Radius
– End to end distance
• Free energy of an ideal polymer
• Flory theory for polymers - scaling laws
• Introduction to fractals
3. Mean-field thermodynamics
• Simple mean-field models (vdW)
• Binodal, spinodal, coexistence
• Thermodynamics of mixing
• Flory-Huggins Model
• Flory-Huggins Phase diagram
4. Entropy at work: Nematic transition
• Orientational order parameter
• Mauer-Saupe
• Mean-field theory Landau-De Gennes
• Onsager Theory
5. Gels
6. Elasticity
7. Self-Assembly
• Thermodynamics of self-assembly
• Critical micelle concentration
Suggested Readings:
Polymer Physics by M. Rubinstein, Ralph H. Colby
Soft Matter Physics by Masako Doi
Introduction to the Theory of Soft Matter: From Ideal Gases to Liquid Crystals
by Jonathan Victor Selinger
Intermolecular and Surface Forces by Jacob N. Israelachvili
Statistical Physics by Roberto Piazza Springer
Exams:
The exam will be an oral interview in which the student
will be asked to present in depth some of the topics discussed in the class.