Characterizing emergent multi-scale dynamics in colloidal nanoparticle gels (opens in new tab)

Colloidal gels assembled from nanoparticles (NPs) are a versatile class of soft network-based materials capable of rich dynamic, mechanical, and even optical or magnetic responses to stimuli. Understanding how their hierarchically organized processes relate to macroscopic network properties remains a broad and unresolved problem in soft matter physics. The mechanisms of gel formation can depend sensitively on the pathway and the nature of NP int...