Soft matter or Soft condensed matter is a subfield of condensed matter comprising a variety of physical states that are easily deformed by thermal stresses or thermal fluctuations. They include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, and a number of biological materials. These materials share an important common feature in that predominant physical behaviors occur at an energy scale comparable with room temperature thermal energy. At these temperatures, quantum aspects are generally unimportant. It has been suggested that Solid state physics be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Liquid (disambiguation). ... A colloid or colloidal dispersion, is a form of matter intermediate between a true solution and a mixture (suspension). ... A polymer is a long, repeating chain of atoms, formed through the linkage of many molecules called monomers. ... Sea foam on the beach Foam on a cappuccino Fire-retardant, foamed plastic being used as a temporary dam for firestop mortar in a cable penetration in a pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. ... A gel is an apparently solid, jellylike material formed from a colloidal solution. ... For other uses, see Room temperature (disambiguation). ... In thermal physics, thermal energy is the energy portion of a system that increases with its temperature. ... In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is an indivisible entity of energy. ...

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, who has been called the "founding father of soft matter," ^[1] received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1991 for discovering that the order parameter from simple thermodynamic systems can be applied to the more complex cases found in soft matter, in particular, to the behaviors of liquid crystals and polymers.^[2] Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (October 24, 1932 in Paris – May 18, 2007 in Orsay) was a French physicist and the Nobel laureate in 1991. ... Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) accepting the Nobel Prize for his work on magnetohydrodynamics [1]. List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar. ... This diagram shows the nomenclature for the different phase transitions. ... Thermodynamics (from the Greek θερμη, therme, meaning heat and δυναμις, dynamis, meaning power) is a branch of physics that studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale by analyzing the collective motion of their particles using statistics. ... Schlieren texture of Liquid Crystal nematic phase Liquid crystals are substances that exhibit a phase of matter that has properties between those of a conventional liquid, and those of a solid crystal. ...

Distinctive physics

Interesting behaviors arise from soft matter in ways that cannot be predicted, or are difficult to predict, directly from its atomic or molecular consituents. This is often because soft matter self-organizes into mesoscopic physical structures that are much larger than the microscopic scale (the arrangement of atoms and molecules), and yet are much smaller than the macroscopic (overall) scale of the material. The properties and interactions of these mesoscopic structures may determine the macroscopic behavior of the material. For example, the turbulent vortices that naturally occur within a flowing liquid are much smaller than the overall quantity of liquid and yet much larger than its individual molecules, and the emergence of these vortices control the overall flowing behavior of the material. Also, the bubbles that comprise a foam are mesoscopic because they individually consist of a vast number of molecules, and yet the foam itself consists of a great number of these bubbles, and the overall mechanical stiffness of the foam emerges from the combined interactions of the bubbles. By way of contrast, in hard condensed matter physics it is often possible to predict the overall behavior of a material because the molecules are organized into a crystalline lattice with no changes in the pattern at any mesoscopic scale. Self-organization refers to a process in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases automatically without being guided or managed by an outside source. ... In physics and chemistry, the mesoscopic scale refers to the length scale at which one can reasonably discuss the properties of a material or phenomenon without having to discuss the behavior of individual atoms. ... For other uses, see Atom (disambiguation). ... 3D (left and center) and 2D (right) representations of the terpenoid molecule atisane. ... In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. ... Vortex created by the passage of an aircraft wing, revealed by coloured smoke A vortex (pl. ... For other uses, see Liquid (disambiguation). ... Sea foam on the beach Foam on a cappuccino Fire-retardant, foamed plastic being used as a temporary dam for firestop mortar in a cable penetration in a pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. ... Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic physical properties of matter. ...

Applications

Soft materials are important in a wide range of technological applications. They may appear as structural and packaging materials, foams and adhesives, detergents and cosmetics, paints, food additives, lubricants and fuel additives, rubber in tires, etc. In addition, a number of biological materials (blood, muscle, milk, yogurt, jello) are classifiable as soft matter. Liquid crystals, another category of soft matter, exhibit a responsivity to electric fields that make them very important as materials in display devices (LCDs). In spite of the various forms of these materials, many of their properties have common physicochemical origins, such as a large number of internal degrees of freedom, weak interactions between structural elements, and a delicate balance between entropic and enthalpic contributions to the free energy. These properties lead to large thermal fluctuations, a wide variety of forms, sensitivity of equilibrium structures to external conditions, macroscopic softness, and metastable states. For other uses, see: information entropy (in information theory) and entropy (disambiguation). ... t In thermodynamics and molecular chemistry, the enthalpy or heat content (denoted as H or ΔH, or rarely as χ) is a quotient or description of thermodynamic potential of a system, which can be used to calculate the useful work obtainable from a closed thermodynamic system under constant pressure. ... In thermodynamics, the Helmholtz free energy is a thermodynamic potential which measures the “useful” work obtainable from a closed thermodynamic system at a constant temperature. ... In materials science, hardness is the characteristic of a solid material expressing its resistance to permanent deformation. ...

Research

The realization that soft matter contains innumerable examples of symmetry breaking, generalized elasticity, and many fluctuating degrees of freedom has re-invigorated classical fields of physics such as fluids (now generalized to non-Newtonian and structured media) and elasticity (membranes, filaments, and anisotropic networks are all important and have common aspects). Soft condensed matter is directly related to studies in biophysics. One possible roadblock to the development of biophysics as an established field is that soft condensed matter may be diverging into two distinct directions: a physical chemistry approach and a complex systems approach Promotional picture Symmetry Breaking is a rock band from Northern New Jersey, in the United States. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... This box:      A fluid is defined as a substance that continually deforms (flows) under an applied shear stress regardless of how small the applied stress. ... Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [ OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727][1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

Examples of soft matter

• Colloids
• Polymers
• Liquid crystals
• Surfactants
• Foams, gels, microemulsions
• Granular materials
• Membranes and other biological matter

A Colloid or colloidal dispersion is a type of homogeneous mixture. ... A polymer is a long, repeating chain of atoms, formed through the linkage of many molecules called monomers. ... Schlieren texture of Liquid Crystal nematic phase Liquid crystals are substances that exhibit a phase of matter that has properties between those of a conventional liquid, and those of a solid crystal. ... Surfactants, also known as tensides, are wetting agents that lower the surface tension of a liquid, allowing easier spreading, and lower the interfacial tension between two liquids. ... Sea foam on the beach Foam on a cappuccino Fire-retardant, foamed plastic being used as a temporary dam for firestop mortar in a cable penetration in a pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. ... A gel is an apparently solid, jellylike material formed from a colloidal solution. ... Microemulsions are clear, stable, isotropic liquid mixtures of oil, water and surfactant, frequently in combination with a cosurfactant. ... A biological membrane or biomembrane is an enclosing or separating tissue which acts as a barrier within or around a cell. ... Biological matter or biological material refers to the unique, highly organized substances of which cellular life is composed of, for instance membranes, proteins, and nucleic acids. ...

See also

• Hard matter
• Roughness
• Soft Matter (an international journal)

The tern hard matter is often used to refer to matter that exhibits high resistance to pressure and deformation. ... Roughness or rugosity is a measurement (see surface metrology) of the small-scale variations in the height of a physical surface. ... Soft Matter is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing original (primary) research and review articles on the generic science underpinning the properties and applications of soft matter. ...

References

I. Hamley, Introduction to Soft Matter (2nd edn), J. Wiley, Chichester (2000).

R.A.L. Jones, Soft Condensed Matter , Oxford University Press, Oxford (2002).

M. Daoud, C.E. Williams, (editors) Soft Matter Physics , Springer Verlag, Berlin (1999).

Gerald H. Ristow, Pattern Formation in Granular Materials, Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, v. 161. Springer, Berlin (2000). ISBN 3 540 667016.

de Gennes, Pierre-Gilles, "Soft Matter," Nobel Lecture, December 9, 1991.

1. ^ Rheology Bulletin Volume 74 Number 2 July 2005, p. 17
2. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1991". Retrieved on January 27, 2008.

Ongoing events • 2005 Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes • 2005 Maharashtra floods • 2005 Gujarat Flood • Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan • Fuel prices • Gomery Comm. ... is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes' Nobel Lecture
• Soft Materials