Design of Soft Materials

3.0 credits · Graduate

Soft materials have unique properties, exploited widely by nature and industry. They are made from a variety of building blocks, including small molecules, macromolecules, and particles. These basic constituents can be arranged into a vast range of microstructures that determine their macroscopic material properties. This course will explore this broad material space, identify unifying scientific ideas, and explore practical strategies for their design. A top-down approach, which emphasizes their macroscopic behavior, will be combined with a bottom-up approach, that describes their microscopic structure and dynamics.