Soft condensed matter physics

Pehmeän tiiviin aineen fysiikka

News.

Lecturer: Ritva Serimaa ritva.serimaa@helsinki.fi

Lectures: tuesday 16-18, thursday 14-16, room D115 Physicum. First lecture 19. 1. 2010

Exercises: Kari Pirkkalainen

Exercises: thursday 16-18. The dead line for returning the answers for exercises is tuesday. Next weeks tasks will be introduced during tuesday lectures.

The aim of the course is to give basic understanding on the structure and properties of soft materials. Basic methods for structural characterization from molecular scale to micrometer scale are reviewed. Examples of novel scientific results in soft condensed matter physics will also be discussed.

Course 2010

Time table html

Exercises

Exercise 1 (pdf) (cell_I_beta.cel)
Exercise 2 (pdf)
Exercise 3 (pdf)
Exercise 4 (pdf)

Books

R-A. L. Jones. Soft condensed matter
G. Strobl. The physics of polymers
I. W. Hamley. Introduction to soft matter

Other useful books

Israelachvili, J. Intermolecular & surface forces
Glatter, O. & Kratky, O. (1982). Small Angle X-ray Scattering. London: Academic Press. PDF-version from University of Graz
Feigin, L.A. and Svergun, D.I. (1987). Structure analysis by small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering. New York: Plenum Press.
Balta-Calleja and Vonk: X-ray scattering of Synthetic Polymers

Lecture material

General features

introduction
intermolecular interactions html
structural organization html
dynamics html
phase transitions html
order parameters html
elastic properties html
scaling laws
polydispersity

Experimental techniques for studying soft matter

x-ray scattering html
light scattering html
imaging html

Computer simulations

Materials

Polymers html
Colloids html
Amphiphiles html
Liquid crystals html
Hierarchical structures in nature