Course Code
P458
Credit
8
Prerequisite
P302 (Statistical Mechanics)
Total Hours
42 Lectures + 14 Tutorials
Outcome of the Course
This course teaches the students advanced concepts and methods in soft matter physics, with the aim to build their background for future research work in this area.
Approval
Syllabus
- Introduction: Basic phenomenology of soft condensed matter systems, intermolecular forces, viscoelasticity, ordering in softmatter, glass transition, phase separation
- Diffusion processes: Fick’s laws, Diffusion Equation, Random walks, Brownian motion, Langevin and Fokker-Plank equations
- Colloids: Stability of colloidal systems, Poisson-Boltzmann theory, DLVO theory, Depletion interactions, Electro-kinetic effects
- Polymers: model systems and chain statistics, polymers in solvents and melts, viscoelasticity, gelation
- Liquid crystals: Introduction, liquid crystal phases and transitions, Distorted nematic ordering, response to electric and magnetic fields
- Amphiphiles: Introduction, microphase separation in block copolymers and in solutions of amphiphiles, aggregation and self-assembly of amphiphiles
Reference Books
- Principles of Condensed Matter Physics by P. M. Chaikin and T. C. Lubensky
- Soft Condensed Matter by R. A. L. Jones
- Structured Fluids: Polymers, Colloids, Surfactants by T. Witten
- Introduction to Soft Matter: Polymers, Colloids, Amphiphiles and Liquid Crystals by I. W. Hamley
- Soft Matter Physics by M. Klemanand and O. D. Lavrentovich
- Colloidal Dispersions by W. B. Russel, D. A. Saville and W. R. Showalter
- Dynamics of Colloids by J. K. G. Dont
- Intermolecular and Surface Forces: With Applications to Colloidal and Biological Systems by J. Israelachvili
- Introduction to Liquid Crystals by P. J. Collings and M. Hird
- Polymer solutions -- an introduction to physical properties by I. Teraoka