Introduction to Soft Matter

3 credits · Undergraduate

Soft matter is ubiquitous in synthetic materials and plays a central role in living systems. This course aims to provide students with an introduction to the physics that govern the structure and dynamics of soft mater systems, including polymers, colloids, surfactants, membranes, and active matter. A particular emphasis will be placed on connecting a microscopic physical picture to the emergent phenomena and properties of interest using scaling theory and statistical mechanics. Specific topics will include Brownian motion and colloidal dynamics, the depletion force, polymer chain conformation, rubber elasticity; and surfactant and liquid crystal thermodynamics.