Polymers and Colloids Many materials, encountered in life, natural or man-made structures, involve polymers and colloids. The emphasis of the course is on physical models for structure and dynamics of these medium length and time-scale systems. The course serves as an introduction to soft-condensed matter and biological physics – which is increasingly an area of research by physicists. There are 16 lectures in the Lent Term (Tue, Thu, 9am - Mott) and two supervisions (in big groups, as usual in Part III). The lectures will be Web-uploaded after they are delivered, to facilitate the revision.

Introduction: summary of the course aims, history and examples, the physical approach to polymers and colloids, length and time scales.

Polymer configurations: configurations of a single chain, statistical mechanics of random walks; confinement, excluded volume and solvent effects; experimental methods of determining the parameters of polymer chains, scattering.

Many chain systems: semi-dilute regime and correlation length; Flory-Huggins theory and kinetics of phase separation in polymers; concentrated regime and screening; scaling theory.

Polymers assembled: random copolymers, biological polymers; block-copolymers, microphase separation and ordering; polymers at surfaces – effects of confinement, depletion at walls, adsorption, polymer brushes.

Mechanical properties: thermoplastics and thermosets; the story of polyethylene; crystalline and glassy states, physical gelation; crosslinked rubbers and rubber elasticity.

Polymer viscoelasticity and dynamics: macroscopic observations and definitions, linear response and fluctuations, storage and loss moduli; microscopic models – the Langevin equation and Rouse dynamics, chain entanglements and introduction to reptation dynamics.

Colloidal suspensions: examples, length, time and energy scales; interactions of colloids, hydrodynamics and Brownian forces; conservative forces due to dispersion, charge, polymers at surfaces, depletion and polymer bridging.

Colloid phases: phase diagram of hard sphere colloid, the role of interaction forces; flocculation, coagulation, states of emulsions, surfactants, micelles and vesicles; fundamentals of colloid rheology.

Useful reading:

An introduction to polymer physics, Doi M (Oxford 1996)
The physics of polymers, Strobl G R (Springer 1997)
Polymers at surfaces and interfaces, Jones R A L and Richards R W (Cambridge 1999)
Scaling concepts in polymer physics, de Gennes P G (Cornell 1979)
The theory of polymer dynamics, Doi M and Edwards S F (Oxford 1986)
Basic Principles of colloid science, Everett, D H (Royal Soc. Chemistry 1988-94)
Colloidal dispersions, Russel, W B, Saville D A and Schowalter W R (Cambridge 1991)
An introduction to food colloids, Dickinson E (Oxford 1992)