Thin Film Block Copolymers

Thin films of block copolymers are currently being investigated for applications in which the nanoscale control of structural dimensions, orientations and chemical functionalities is of critical importance. This focus session highlights recent experimental and theoretical developments related to designing, manipulating, characterizing, or utilizing the nanoscale architectures afforded in thin films. Contributions related to synthesis and assembly of novel functional thin film materials, directed assembly, high-throughput techniques, thermodynamics of thin film processing, and structure-property relationships. Applications of the films including, but not limited to, patterning, membranes, biological templates, electronics, and photonics are welcome.

Organizers:
T. Epps III
University of Delaware
Email: thepps@udel.edu

T. Xu
University of California, Berkeley
Email: tingxu@berkeley.edu

Crystallization in Multicomponent and Hybrid Systems

Polymer crystallization in multicomponent and hybrid systems has recently become a central focus in polymer crystallization research. Related challenging questions are, interplay between nucleation and chain confinement, interface between crystalline chain and nanofillers, crystal growth and impingement in systems such as nanocomposites, and confinement effect on polymer crystallization. This focus session encompasses a number of interesting systems including block copolymers, crystalline polymer thin films and nanocomposites. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following studies: polymer crystallization in hybrid systems: epitaxy, graphoepitaxy and soft epitaxy; structural and morphological development of ordered polymer chains in confined space; ultra-small polymer crystals; curved, scrolled and twisted crystals; polymer crystallization in nanofibers; crystalline and liquid crystalline block copolymers. Both theoretical and experimental studies are welcome.

Organizers:
C. Li
Drexel University
Email: chrisli@drexel.edu

B. Lotz
Institut Charles Sadron
Email: bernard.lotz@ics-cnrs.unistra.fr

Long-time, Entangled Dynamics in Polymer Melts

The study of entangled polymer dynamics has an illustrious and long-standing history. Recent advancements in both simulation and experimental techniques have brought new information and new understanding of the microscopic mechanisms responsible for entangled dynamics. This focus session aims at highlighting recent experimental, simulation, and theoretical developments related to the long-time dynamics of polymer liquids. Contributions are sought that cover diverse areas from viscoelastic properties, scattering, single molecule imaging, to novel simulation techniques and recent theoretical models that are both reptation and non-reptation-based approaches.

Organizer:
M. Guenza
University of Oregon
Email: mguenza@uoregon.edu

Dynamics of Polymers: Phenomena due to Confinement

This focus session will solicit talks examining how nanoscale confinement influences the dynamics and properties of polymers. Many experiments have focused on changes of the glass transition temperature with confinement, and the results and interpretation of such experiments are still a matter of significant debate. In addition to changes in Tg, other measures of dynamic properties such as the diffusion coefficient, relaxation time, aging rate or viscosity, are of interest.

Organizers:
R. Riggleman
University of Pennsylvania
Email: rrig@seas.upenn.edu

Z. Fakhraai
University of Pennsylvania
Email: fakhraai@sas.upenn.edu

Block Copolymer Micelles and Polymersomes

In recent years, much new knowledge and information has been obtained about the unusual fundamental properties of block copolymer micelles and polymersomes and the unique technological opportunities associated with these forms of block copolymer self-assembly. This focus session solicits contributions that demonstrate such developments in both experimental and theoretical/computational domains. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas: novel processes for fabrication of polymersomes of a controlled size and shape, nonergodic micelles of block copolymers, novel processing strategies for controlling micelle morphologies, molecular exchange mechanisms, multicompartment micelles/polymersomes, asymmetric (“Janus”) micelles/polymersomes, self-assemblies of block copolypeptides, micellization of block copolymers at interfaces, encapsulation of inorganic/metal nanoparticles into block copolymer micelles, photodegradable block copolymer micelles, block copolymer micelles in ionic liquids, nano carriers for co-delivery of multiple therapeutic agents, complexes between polymer micelles and biomacromolecules, and stimuli-responsive transformations between different micelle morphologies.

Organizer:
Y.-Y. Won
Purdue University
Email: yywon@ecn.purdue.edu

Interparticle Interactions in Polymer Nanocomposites

The combination of nanoscopic particles and a polymeric matrix can sometimes produce dramatic changes in the tangible physical properties of the polymer, far in excess of the changes induced by traditional fillers. The possibility of developing new materials with remarkable properties derived from the simple addition of trace amounts of filler resulted in an overwhelming focus on methods for creating fine dispersions and minimizing interactions between nanoparticles. In natural materials, however, one can find interesting examples where interactions between nanoparticles result in important, macroscopic physical properties. The focus of this special session will be on research exploring interparticle interactions in polymer nanocomposites. Mechanisms for introducing interactions, controlling those interactions, and the role and effects of interparticle interactions on the properties of polymer nanocomposites will be examined. Any papers on these specific concepts or related work in polymer nanocomposites are welcome.

Organizers:
R. Beyer
Army Research Laboratory
Email: Frederick.L.Beyer3.civ@mail.mil

J. Watkins
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Email: watkins@polysci.umass.edu

Directed Assembly of Hybrid Materials

Hybrid materials, comprised of nanoparticles dispersed in a polymer, afford a wide range of technological opportunities, spanning energy devices and functional coatings, to multifunctional structures for transportation and aerospace. This promise arises from the pretext that control of nanoscale structure imparts control of local dynamics and field distributions, and thus tunability of macroscopic properties. The principal challenge to the full realization of these opportunities is directing the assembly of nanoparticles, and from there enunciating the structure-property relationships. This session seeks papers addressing the fundamental experimental, theoretical and modeling elucidation of the physics underlying structure control and materials assembly and the implications of these ordered and hierarchical structures on particle and polymer physics. Critical topics include design of building blocks, determination of building block composition, structure and distributions, quantification of polymer nanoparticle interactions via NMR, x-ray, neutron and other spectroscopic techniques, understanding the role of self and directed assembly on the hierarchical morphologies, and establishment of general structure-property relationships.

Organizers:
S.K. Kumar
Columbia University
Email: sk2794@columbia.edu

R. Vaia
United States Air Force
Email: Richard.Vaia@wpafb.af.mil

R. Sharma
Cabot Corporation
Email: Ravi_Sharma@cabot-corp.com

Organic Electronics and Photonics

The electronic, excitonic, and photonic properties of organic materials, including small molecules and polymers, continue to be the subject of active fundamental and applied research. This focus topic covers recent developments in this field. In particular, contributions are solicited from the following areas related to organic semiconductor materials and devices:

• Charge carrier transport and injection
• Exciton dynamics and transport
• Organic-organic and organic-inorganic interfaces
• Optical and optoelectronic properties
• Correlations to primary chemical structure, microstructure, and morphology
• Fundamental progress in device design, processing, and modeling, including work on light-emitting devices, photovoltaic cells, field-effect transistors, switches, and lasers

Organizers:
Dean M. DeLongchamp
NIST
Email: dean.delongchamp@nist.gov

Calvin K. Chan
Sandia National Laboratories
Email: cchan@sandia.gov

Richard R. Lunt
Michigan State University
Email: rlunt@msu.edu

Polymers for Energy Storage and Conversion

Advances in development of polymeric materials and polymer based devices for energy applications have generated new knowledge, concepts and strategies for solar energy conversion, generation of light and energy storage. This symposium covers recent developments in this field. Contributions are solicited for research related to the above topics such as utilizing polymer – nanofiller, multijunction, multilayer based energy capture and conversion schemes, polymers as variable band gap materials, polymers in the capacity of light emitting and charge carrier transport materials and for energy storage device such as Lithium ion polymer batteries or block copolymers for ultracapacitors. Advances in physics underlying polymer enabled energy devices such as in solar cells, light emitting diodes, batteries and capacitors and their efficiency and performance is solicited through both theoretical and experimental studies.

Organizer:
N. Balsara
University of California, Berkeley
Email: nbalsara1@gmail.com

same as 21.3

Micro and Nano Fluidics

This section will focus on the behavior of fluids confined in micron and nanometer length scale channels. It will concern both the fundamental physics of the flow of the fluids in these channels and the very extensive and growing applications of microfluidics, both in biological applications and in making new materials.

Organizer:
D. Weitz
Harvard University
Email: weitz@seas.harvard.edu

Heterogeneous Colloids

Colloids have been made typically from spherical, or sometimes rods, without any directionality to their interactions. Over the past few years, new colloids with directional interactions have been developed, which in turn has led to some fascinating new self-assembled structures such as clusters, crystal and a kagome lattices, colloidal "polymer chains" and "branch polymers." This focus session will address topics of self-assembly of heterogeneous colloids with hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts, colloids with lock-and-key interactions and directional interactions that control the depletion attraction through particle roughness. The session will focus on experimental, theoretical and computation aspects of this new and exciting area of colloid related research.

Organizer:
D.J. Pine
New York University
Email: pine@nyu.edu

Advanced Optical Probes of Soft Matter

Complementary advances in optical imaging and optical micromanipulation are providing unprecedented access to the microscopic structure and dynamics of soft-matter systems. This session focuses on insights into the interactions, dynamical transitions and statistical physics of colloids, polymers, related materials that have been gained from such techniques as holographic video microscopy, optical trapping, superresolution microscopy and microrheology.

Organizer:
D.G. Grier
New York University
Email: david.grier@nyu.edu

Fluctuation-Induced Forces in Soft Matter and Polymeric Systems

Fluctuation-induced forces are ubiquitous, spanning van der Waals/Casimir forces in QED, interactions between macro-ions in an ionic solution, forces due to large scale thermal fluctuations near a critical point, as well as depletion forces in colloids. Fluctuation induced forces are far more complex than direct forces; they do not follow simple power laws, they are not pairwise-additive, they can be attractive or repulsive and they are orientation dependent. Experimental advances in the last decade have made possible precise measurements of both QED Casimir forces, and forces induced by thermal fluctuations. This has generated considerable theoretical effort in the field, partly spurred by the desire to design and manipulate devices at the micron scale, where these forces are paramount. Entropic forces exerted by polymeric fluctuations are also relevant to atomic force measurements aimed at unraveling biomolecules, and important to manipulations of larger particles in a polymer solution. The aim of this focused topic session is to bring together colleagues from different disciplines to discuss theoretical developments and experimental advances in understanding of fluctuation-induced forces.

Organizer:
M. Kardar
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: kardar@mit.edu

Gelation and Glass Transition in Colloids and Soft Matter Systems

Formation of gels and glasses are important transitions exhibited in colloidal and soft matter systems, yet a fundamental understanding of these phenomena remains elusive. However, it is well understood that these transitions are controlled by the interaction potentials that can be accurately tuned in a number of experimental systems. This session will focus on experimental and computational evidence, as well theoretical models, quantifying role of interplay of kinetics and thermodynamics, of geometrical constraints of packing, and self-assembly driven by attractive interactions in colloidal systems leading to formation of gels and glasses as well as new development in understanding the role of normal modes and the density of states on thermal and mechanical properties of glasses and other disordered systems.

Organizers:
M. Rubinstein
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Email: mr@uns.edu

M.F. Islam
Carnegie Mellon University
Email: mohammad@cmu.edu

P. Schall
University of Amsterdam
Email: pschall@science.uva.nl

Soft Matter Physics of Drops, Bubbles, Foams and Emulsions

This session will focus on of drops of fluids or bubble of air, both as individual entities, and as dense suspensions, where they become foams and emulsions. It will concern the properties of the individual drops and bubbles, and their interactions with their surroundings, including with other drops and bubbles. In addition, the session will concern the behavior of foams and emulsions, both in terms of the interactions on the interfaces, the interactions between the drops and bubbles, and the macroscopic properties of foams and emulsions.

Organizer:
D. Weitz
Harvard University
Email: weitz@seas.harvard.edu

Nano to Meso-scale Structure in Ordered Soft Matter: Liquid Crystals and Liquid Crystal Elastomers

Local structure in ordered fluid phases that forms spontaneously—cybotaxis in liquid crystals (LC)—or via external constraints in liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) is of current interest. The goal of the focus session will be to highlight the latest advances in theory and experiment in the rapidly emerging topic. Special emphasis will be placed on systems based on nonlinear LCs, so-called bent core mesogens (BCMs). In particular, evidence for local clusters within both the isotropic and LC phases of BCMs is rapidly accruing. The implications of clustering for a deeper understanding of condensed fluid phases as well as potential applications will be considered.

Organizer:
E.T. Samulski
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Email: et@unc.edu

DNA-Coated Colloidal Particles

Techniques developed over the past decade enable the coating of colloidal particles with DNA for specific thermoreversible or irreversible interactions. New doors for programmed self-assembly have been opened and structures have progressed from aggregates to simple crystal lattices, to colloidal compounds with tunable parameters. At the same time the colloidal systems have expanded to encompass the nanometer to micrometer scales. Theoretical studies indicate that the use of specific bonds can force the formation of virtually any structure, and developments in DNA nanotechnology preview adding motion, motility and reactivity to such structures. Experimental, theoretical and computational studies covering these areas are invited.

Organizer:
P. Chaikin
New York University
Email: Chaikin@nyu.edu

Statistical Physics of Active Systems Away From Detailed Balance: Motors, Swimmers, and all that

This focus session will address application of statistical physics to the systems actively driven away from equilibrium by active energy consuming biological processes, such as swimming microorganisms, molecular motor dependent dynamics of the cytoskeleton, active simplification of DNA topology, and other phenomena violating detailed balance. The huge research activity in these areas is driven by novel experimental techniques at single molecule, sub-cellular, and multi-cellular levels. The subjects of the focus session will include experimental and theoretical aspects of the mobility of DNA segments inside chromatin, molecular and cellular mechanisms of swimming, self-assembly of viruses, and the driven dynamics of molecular motors or the replication fork. This focus session will bring together experts working at the interface of polymer and soft matter physics, biophysics and biology to discuss these exciting fields in context of each other.

Organizers:
A. Grosberg
New York University
Email: ayg1@nyu.edu

M. Rubinstein
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Email: mr@unc.edu

Soft Matter Physics of Heterogeneous Membranes

Self-assembled phospholipid membranes serve as barriers in the biological context and when in the form of closed vesicles may be containers for targeting and delivery of chemicals and drugs. There has been considerable recent interest in heterogeneous membranes is several contexts: (i) membranes that are assembled from mixtures of surfactants which microphase separate in the form of rafts; (ii) membrane fluctuation mediated interactions between inclusions, e.g. membrane-bound proteins. Experimental, theoretical and computational studies covering these areas are welcome.

Organizers:
P. Pincus
University of California, Santa Barbara
Email: fyl@mrl.ucsb.edu

Translocation through Nanopores

Polymer translocation through protein and synthetic nanopores is an active area of theoretical, computational, and experimental studies. It brings together a broad spectrum of scientists to address a wide variety of fundamental and technological challenges. The focus session will address theoretical treatments of translocation through nanopores, computational challenges in coarse-grained and all atom simulations, electrostatics and hydrodynamical aspects inside and in the vicinity of the nanopore, and novel experiments pertaining to filtration and translocation of important biomolecules, such as, DNA, RNA, and proteins.

Organizers:
A. Bhattacharya
University of Central Florida
Email: Aniket.Bhattacharya@ucf.edu

Hydrophobic Interactions and Hydrogen Bonding Networks in Polymeric and Soft Matter Systems

In numerous polymeric and soft matter systems, crucial microscopic interactions are either hydrophobically driven or may be based on directional hydrogen bonding. Understanding detailed physics of these interactions is still a problem of great current interest. Among many intriguing questions, how hydrophobic interactions depend on solute’s size, local curvature, and chemical heterogeneity are hotly debated and explored. Hydrogen bonding is also not fully understood at the microscopic level, due to non-trivial mixing of electrostatic and quantum orbital effects, giving its important angular character. Applications are sought that highlight recent progress in understanding of hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding effects, using both theoretical approaches (including classical statistical physics and quantum calculations) and experiments (including thermodynamic measurements, bulk, surface and single-molecule spectroscopy).

Organizers:
G. Papoian
University of Maryland
Email: gpapoian@umd.edu

Singular Flows: Fluid, Complex or Granular

How fluid motion first creates, then resolves, a finite-time pressure singularity controls the evolution of many flows. Examples range from liquid drop pinch-off, splash formation and supersonic flight. In granular materials or complex fluids, the continuum description of motion is expected to break down in regions of high pressure. The material response becomes nonlinear, and details about constituent particle interactions may play a large role in the subsequent dynamics.

Organizer:
Wendy W. Zhang
Physics & James Franck Institute
University of Chicago
929 E. 57th Street Chicago IL 60637
Email: wzhang@uchicago.edu

Memory in Materials

Materials have the ability to retain information about how they were formed or manipulated. Such memories can be read out at a later time. The information can be encoded in phases (as in echo formation) or dynamics (as in aging in glasses) or in defect or particle position (as in charge density waves or dense suspension in oscillatory flow).

Organizer:
Wendy W. Zhang
Physics & James Franck Institute
University of Chicago
929 E. 57th Street Chicago IL 60637
Email: wzhang@uchicago.edu

Complex and Co-evolving Networks

Traditional statistical mechanics deals with interacting particle systems that can either be described by an ordered interaction topology (crystals) or random interactions embedded in the three dimensional continuum, approachable by differential equations. In these cases the complex behavior arises from nonlinearity and nonlocality of the interactions. There is, however, a large class of systems called complex networks, in which the interactions are mediated not necessarily by a continuum, or a regular structure but by a complex graph, whose structure may evolve as part of the dynamics of the interactions themselves. Accordingly, collective phenomena appearing in complex networks can be fundamentally different from those observed in classical materials and systems. This Focus Session will feature some of the latest advancements in understanding collective phenomena in complex networks including critical phenomena, random processes on networks, stochastic synchronization, flow optimization, routing, load balancing, failure cascades and flow control.

An important aspect that will be explored is the behavior of co-evolving networks. Networks are not static but rather evolve continuously in response to underlying endogenous exogenous forces. Furthermore, networks do not live in isolation as they are interlinked either by sharing edger or through a multitude of interdependencies to transport and store various entities, including materials, energy, information and people across vastly varying spatial and temporal scales. Through this coupling, changes in one network or in a dynamical process cause changes in all interdependent networks. It is vital to consider co-evolution and interdependency on which the processes of interest unfold. In recent years, however, most of the work considered only a single snapshot of the network as the input and paid little attention to the networks’ evolutionary process over time. The objective of this session is to present recent work in the definition of formal models and the appropriate mathematical and statistical tools aimed at understanding and characterizing the properties of information flow, evolution, and co-evolution of networks.

Organizers:
Bruno Goncalves
Indiana University
Phone: (678) 644-1704
Email: bgoncalv@indiana.edu

Nicola Perra
Indiana University
Phone: (812) 855-9958
Email: nperra@indiana.edu

Zoltan Toroczkai
University of Notre Dame
Phone: (574) 631-2618
Email: toro@nd.edu

Extreme Mechanics

Over the past few years, the scientific community has taken the fields of elasticity and solid mechanics into a new exciting direction. In particular, the elasticity of soft materials and structures can be rich and highly nontrivial. During the deformation process of a soft object, large displacements can give rise to non-negligible geometric nonlinearities. There is also a great potential for coupling the elasticity of highly deformable objects with other phenomena such as fluid flow, surface tension, fracture and adhesion, to name but a few. Moreover, elasticity offers the unique and exciting possibility to design multifunctional materials with novel properties through the appropriate design of the structural layout.

Organizers:
Pedro Reis
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Phone: (617) 324-3325
Email: preis@mit.edu

Katia Bertoldi
Harvard University
Phone: (617) 496-3084
Email: bertoldi@seas.harvard.edu

Jamming: Nonlinear Acoustics, Vibrational Response, and Soft Modes

In this session, we seek theoretical, computational, and experimental studies of the vibrational response of jammed particulate materials including colloids and granular media. We are particularly interested in studies aimed at isolating the nonharmonicities in the response to perturbations caused by distinct sources of nonlinearity such as friction, damping, nonlinear contact forces, and the breaking and forming of contacts between particles.

Organizer:
Corey O'Hern
Yale University, Departments of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science and Physics
Phone: (203) 432-4258
Email: corey.ohern@yale.edu

Spin Glasses

Spin glasses continue to be an active and controversial area in statistical physics with ramifications across many disciplines. As a paradigmatic example of frustration and rough free energy landscapes, spin glasses have applications across multiple fields. For example, p-spin models are used to understand structural glasses, replica methods originally developed for spin glasses are used to study ensembles of NP-hard problems in computer science and spin glass-models with exotic interactions are needed to analyze error correction techniques in topological quantum computing.

Furthermore, spin glasses have motivated the development of powerful algorithms such as parallel tempering, genetic algorithms with triadic crossover, extremal optimization, etc., that are widely used across a spectrum of complex optimization problems that display rough free energy landscapes such as predicting the conformation of biomolecules or solving combinatorial optimization problems. Thus problems based on spin-glass like Hamiltonians are under active study using complex computational methods and continue to spawn algorithmic advances.

Organizer:
Jon Machta
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Phone: (413) 335-2258
Email: machta@physics.umass.edu

Common Features of Soft Materials: Polymers, Colloids, and Granular Media

Polymeric, colloidal, and granular media, as soft matter systems, possess many common features. Among these are force chains, jamming and glass transitions preceded by divergent slowing down of dynamics, complex history-dependent mechanical properties, and great potential for use as "smart" materials. There are many tools commonly used in each of these fields that could be profitably applied to the others, yet with which workers in the others are generally unfamiliar. This Focus Session will bring together researchers working at one or more of the "interfaces" between these fields, as well as those working in one of the fields who wish to present results they believe could be fruitfully applied to one or both of the others.

Organizer:
Robert S. Hoy
Yale University
Phone: (203) 848-7001
Email: robert.hoy@yale.edu

Wave Propagation in Strongly Scattering Media

Recently there has been great interest in the propagation of waves in strongly scattering (even opaque) media. This work has been carried out in optics, acoustics, microwaves, and terahertz waves. The statistical properties of these media have previously been characterized through measurements of scattering correlation functions, fidelity decay, conductance fluctuations, coherent backscattering, etc. Now these properties are being exploited to create new functionality, such as wave focusing by passing them through opaque media. This topic is of broad interest to researchers in many technical fields including geophysics, medical imaging, communications, sensing, etc. It is a subject that often "falls between the cracks" and a special session on this topic can nucleate new interest and spark new collaborations that break traditional boundaries between disciplines.

Organizer:
Steven M. Anlage
Physics Department, CNAM, University of Maryland
Phone: (301) 405-7321
Email: anlage@umd.edu

Using Chaos to Control Quantum Systems

The phenomena of tunneling and electron transport are quintessential quantum behaviors occurring in much technology like transistors, chemical reactions, and nano-devices. However, the understanding of tunneling in multidimensional systems is difficult and few general results exist because most multi-dimensional systems exhibit classically chaotic behavior. Recent results have shown that systems with different shapes can have chaotic behavior that results in very different tunneling and transport properties from systems without chaotic behavior, i.e. regular systems. Some of these differences suggest ways to design devices to better control or regulate transport using the systems' shape to control the amount and nature of the quantum chaos. This Focus session will highlights recent work that explores these phenomena and suggest paths to different nano-system device designs.

Organizers:
Ying-Cheng Lai
Arizona State University
Phone: (480) 965-6668
Email: Ying-Cheng.Lai@asu.edu

Louis M. Pecora
Naval Research Laboratory
Phone: (202) 767-6002
Email: pecora@anvil.nrl.navy.mil

Continuum Descriptions of Discrete Media

Many deformable materials of interest in basic and applied physics have a coarse microstructure, such as granular materials, foams, suspensions, emulsions, and glasses. To model these materials at the large-scale, continuum formulations have been sought after to represent the homogenized effects of a large number of microscopic interactions. While extremely useful and expeditious for simulation purposes, the derivation of valid continuum models for particulate media remains challenging. Issues such as jamming, non-locality, intermittency, temperature analogies, homogenization scales, and shear banding have proven to be complex and important topics when constructing continuum descriptions for these materials. This focus session shall discuss the current state of research in continuum approaches for discrete materials, mixing aspects of statistical, fluid, and solid mechanics with discrete particle physics.

Organizer:
Ken Kamrin
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 1-310
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA
Phone: (617) 715-4157
Email: kkamrin@mit.edu