Soft Matter in the Nanoscale




Play-doh, 3-D printer gels, latex paint, battery electrolytes and even some foods like mayonnaise are considered soft matter.
 A huge project involves researchers from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. 
The team has discovered an advance for understanding and enhancing the flow properties of soft matter on the nanoscale. This advance is because of a new technique called X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS).  

This information was recently published in PNAS. 

Matthew Tirrell is a scientist at Argonne and is working with the University of Chicago. He states, “Soft matter is easily deformed. It’s properties are highly responsive to outside stimuli, such as force, temperature change or chemical reaction.” 
For example, when paint is applied to walls, flows that are highly complex happen at the nanoscale. When the rolling or brushing is stopped, paint does not drip off the wall. 
“In a nutshell, we developed a new technique to characterize the complicated fluctuations that soft matter nanoparticles undergo while being subjected to something like an applied force or temperature change,” said Hong Rui He, lead author of the paper.
 
Flow behavior and interactions of these nanoparticles overtime has been elusive. It is difficult to distinguish between flow properties.

Wei Chen is an Argonne chemist. He states, “Previous XPCS experiments required averaging collected data, which led to the loss of crucial information about the complex processes at the nanoscale.”

The team used XPCS data to understand the transport coefficient. The flow of a material is the required coefficient.
 Using the XPCS data is important to understanding movement in soft matter and changes over time while responding to an external stimulus. 

The Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the DOE Office of Science at Argonne have a special X-ray beam. 
The team tested their theories using the XPCS method on a complex soft material. The material was a mix of spherical charged particles in a salt solution. Shearing was the force being applied to the material. 
“Shearing occurs when you spread thick lotion on your hands and rub them together,” says Surech Narayanan, group leader at APS. 

The shearing showed changing flow properties and deformities in the salt mixture. Three bands of nanoparticles were formed. These bands are fast moving, slow moving and static. 
The fast moving bands disappeared after 15 seconds.
40 seconds later, three bands reappeared.  
These findings are a major leap forward for  analysis. It will be used to test many forms of soft matter in the future. 
“The XPCS development is very timely for future work due to the significant increase in beam brightness with the APS upgrade. What’s more, it holds potential for studying natural phenomena, such as landslides, earthquakes and the growth of plaque in arteries. Understanding the fluctuations in flow at the nano scale could help predict future changes on a larger scale,” said Narayanan. 
New experiments are set to begin at APS later in 2024. 

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