Soft Colloids from p
Subtitle: Packing dynamics and structure
Contributors: Weitz, David; Manoharan, Vinothan; Suo, Zhigang
Published: 2012
Language: eng
Description: Traditionally, the experimental model of choice for studying the structure and dynamics of glasses or crystals are hard-sphere colloids. An analogy with molecular or atomic materials is often drawn, in which each colloidal particle represents an atom or a molecule. Making the individual particles deformable allows an even wider range of phenomena to be observed. In this thesis, I report the three-dimensional confocal microscopic study of the structure and dynamics of aqueous suspensions of fluorescently labeled poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide)-co-(Acrylic Acid), or p(NIPAm-co-AAc), microgel particles of hydrodynamic diameter 1.0 - 1.5 &mu;m. Image analysis techniques and particle tracking algorithms are used to quantify the particle dynamics and the suspension structure.
Notes: Keywords: Colloids, Crystallization, Packing dynamics, Packing structure, pNIPAm, Soft colloids.

Thesis Ph.D. Harvard University 2012