NS-TP449M3.8 ECTSQ1EnglishMaster
Fundamentals of Soft Matter
FaculteitFaculty of Science
NiveauMaster
Studiejaar2026-2027
Beschrijving
Course goals
Upon successfully completing the course, the student
- Understands the most common interactions and associated time and length scales that govern the structure and dynamics in soft materials and systems. The student is capable of arguing, which of these processes is dominant in the system and construct relevant reduced quantities based on dimensional analysis to support their analysis. In this context, the student should know the origin and scaling of van-der-Waals forces, DLVO interactions, and steric repulsions.
- Understands the origin and properties of Brownian motion. They can also derive, solve, and work with the (generalized) Langevin equation, the Stokes-Einstein relation, and the diffusion equation.
- Has working knowledge of standard thermodynamics and the classical ensembles, which they can apply to mixtures as well. The student can also extend standard (volumetric) bulk thermodynamics to finite surface areas, understand the concepts of surface tension, adsorption, and the Gibbs adsorption equation.
- Can calculate thermodynamic properties of non-ideal gases and liquids from the virial expansion and the Van der Waals equation of state, and understands the concepts of spinodal, binodal, criticality, tie-lines etc. in the context of the gas-liquid transition and phase diagrams of simple fluids. Understands how to extend these concepts to heterogeneous systems within simple density functional theory.
- Has a basic notion of the structural descriptions used to characterize dilute and dense fluids, as well as crystals, and knows how these may be related to the thermodynamical properties of the system.
- Knows the concepts of can do calculations within Poisson-Boltzmann and Debye-Hückel theory for charged particles or charged surfaces in electrolytes.
- Has basic knowledge of the structure of liquid crystals (isotropic, nematic, smectic, columnar states); can do basic calculations on the basis of Oseen-Frank theory for elastic deformations of the nematic director and/or Landau-deGennes theory with the tensorial nematic order parameter, and/or Onsager’s theory for the orientation distribution function.
- Has basic knowledge of nonequilibrium and hydrodynamic phenomena. The student knows the Navier-Stokes equations and the flow/motion (osmosis/phoresis) generated by gradients of, for instance, pressure, electrostatic potential, temperature, and concentrations.
Content
Course content
The course Fundamentals of Soft Matter teaches the basic principles needed to describe soft materials, which are characterized by their ‘ease of deformation’. As a field, Soft Matter lives at the intersection of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Engineering; it provides insights into a wide range of phenomena encountered in each of these. For example, Soft-Matter science is critical to many of our modern technologies, ranging from batteries and energy storage to medical devices, personal care products to food preparations, and liquid-crystal displays to printer inks. Beyond these more practical considerations, Soft Matter not only involves a plethora of physical ingredients (for instance non-equilibrium statistical physics, electrostatics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, transport theory) but it also deals with unsolved fundamental problems in Physics, e.g., relating to the origin of the glass transition, the relation between geometry and topology in deformable materials, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, or the prediction of the structure of self-assembling nanoparticles. It thus has features that are appealing to a wide range of scientific interests and allows for interaction with researchers that have widely differing expertise and viewpoints.
The intrinsic complexity of many soft materials can make it challenging, but also rewarding to apply the tools of Statistical Physics in combination with hydrodynamics and electromagnetism to describe their structure and response. Interestingly, much insight into these systems can already be gleaned from dimensional analysis and scaling arguments. Utilizing these arguments effectively and backing these up with detailed calculations is key to making progress in the field of Soft Matter. The course Fundamentals of Soft Matter provides a broad introduction into the underlying Physics and Physical Chemistry of this field. Building on elementary statistical physics (ensembles, partition functions) students will learn the basics of the field. They will also be introduced to some of the more advanced tools of statistical physics available to analyse soft materials (based on series expansions, correlation functions, mean-field approximations, coarse graining, etc.). A particularly good understanding of the methods of Statistical Physics is thus required to successfully engage with this course.
This course provides entry to the more focused modules Experimental Soft Matter (NS EX432M, 3.75 EC) and Theory of Soft and Active Matter (NS-TP458M, 3.75 EC), both of which can be taken simultaneously in block 2.
The course Fundamentals of Soft Matter teaches the basic principles needed to describe soft materials, which are characterized by their ‘ease of deformation’. As a field, Soft Matter lives at the intersection of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Engineering; it provides insights into a wide range of phenomena encountered in each of these. For example, Soft-Matter science is critical to many of our modern technologies, ranging from batteries and energy storage to medical devices, personal care products to food preparations, and liquid-crystal displays to printer inks. Beyond these more practical considerations, Soft Matter not only involves a plethora of physical ingredients (for instance non-equilibrium statistical physics, electrostatics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, transport theory) but it also deals with unsolved fundamental problems in Physics, e.g., relating to the origin of the glass transition, the relation between geometry and topology in deformable materials, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, or the prediction of the structure of self-assembling nanoparticles. It thus has features that are appealing to a wide range of scientific interests and allows for interaction with researchers that have widely differing expertise and viewpoints.
The intrinsic complexity of many soft materials can make it challenging, but also rewarding to apply the tools of Statistical Physics in combination with hydrodynamics and electromagnetism to describe their structure and response. Interestingly, much insight into these systems can already be gleaned from dimensional analysis and scaling arguments. Utilizing these arguments effectively and backing these up with detailed calculations is key to making progress in the field of Soft Matter. The course Fundamentals of Soft Matter provides a broad introduction into the underlying Physics and Physical Chemistry of this field. Building on elementary statistical physics (ensembles, partition functions) students will learn the basics of the field. They will also be introduced to some of the more advanced tools of statistical physics available to analyse soft materials (based on series expansions, correlation functions, mean-field approximations, coarse graining, etc.). A particularly good understanding of the methods of Statistical Physics is thus required to successfully engage with this course.
This course provides entry to the more focused modules Experimental Soft Matter (NS EX432M, 3.75 EC) and Theory of Soft and Active Matter (NS-TP458M, 3.75 EC), both of which can be taken simultaneously in block 2.
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