Drying of Soft Colloidal Films.

Thin films made of deformable micro- and nano-units, such as biological membranes, polymer interfaces, and particle-laden liquid surfaces, exhibit a complex behavior during drying, with consequences for various applications like wound healing, coating technologies, and additive manufacturing. Studying the drying dynamics and structural changes of soft colloidal films thus holds the potential to yield valuable insights to achieve improvements for applications. In this study, interfacial monolayers of core-shell (CS) microgels with varying degrees of softness are employed as model systems and to investigate their drying behavior on differently modified solid substrates (hydrophobic vs hydrophilic).

Compression of colloidal monolayers at liquid interfaces: investigation.

The assembly of colloidal particles at liquid/liquid or air/liquid interfaces is a versatile procedure to create microstructured monolayers and study their behavior under compression. When combined with soft and deformable particles such as microgels, compression is used to tune not only the interparticle distance but also the underlying microstructure of the monolayer. So far, the great majority of studies on microgel-laden interfaces are conducted after transfer to solid substrates, for example, Langmuir-Blodgett deposition.

Micron-Sized Silica-PNIPAM Core-Shell Microgels with Tunable Shell-To-Core Ratio.

Micron-sized hard core-soft shell hybrid microgels are promising model systems for studies of soft matter as they enable in-situ optical investigations and their structures/morphologies can be engineered with a great variety. Yet, protocols that yield micron-sized core-shell microgels with a tailorable shell-to-core size ratio are rarely available. In this work, we report on the one-pot synthesis protocol for micron-sized silica-poly(-isopropylacrylamide) core-shell microgels that has excellent control over the shell-to-core ratio.