Soft matter physics

Soft matter (polymers, colloids, surfactants and liquid crystals) are an important class of materials in modern technology. They also form the basis of many future technologies, for example in medical and environmental applications. Soft matter shows complex behaviour between fluids and solids, and used to be a synonym of complex materials. Due to the developments of the past two decades, soft condensed matter can now be discussed on the same sound physical basis as solid condensedmatter. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of soft matter for undergraduate and graduate students.

Cover; Contents; 1 What is soft matter?; 1.1 Polymers; 1.2 Colloids; 1.3 Surfactants; 1.4 Liquid crystals; 1.5 What is common in soft matter?; 1.6 Summary of this chapter; Further reading; 2 Soft matter solutions; 2.1 Thermodynamics of solutions; 2.2 Phase separation; 2.3 Lattice model; 2.4 Polymer solutions; 2.5 Colloidal solutions; 2.6 Multi-component solutions; 2.7 Summary of this chapter; Further reading; Exercises; 3 Elastic soft matter; 3.1 Elastic soft matter; 3.2 Elasticity of a polymer chain; 3.3 Kuhn's theory for rubber elasticity; 3.4 Polymer gels; 3.5 Summary of this chapter

Further readingExercises; 4 Surfaces and surfactants; 4.1 Surface tension; 4.2 Wetting; 4.3 Surfactants; 4.4 Inter-surface potential; 4.5 Summary of this chapter; Further reading; Exercises; 5 Liquid crystals; 5.1 Nematic liquid crystals; 5.2 Mean field theory for the isotropic-nematic transition; 5.3 Landau-de Gennes theory; 5.4 Effect of a spatial gradient on the nematic order; 5.5 Onsager's theory for the isotropic-nematic transition of rod-like particles; 5.6 Summary of this chapter; Further reading; Exercises; 6 Brownian motion and thermal fluctuations

6.1 Random motion of small particles6.2…