Scientific Highlights from Network Area 1 Archives

22 May 2026

A trapped air bubble deforms a draining liquid sheet, but the defect does not cross the rupture threshold. Surface tension pulls the cavity back together and the sheet heals. Image copyright: the authors, adapted figure 2(a,b) published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 054001 (2025), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.054001.

22 May 2026

Tiny Defects, Big Consequences: Why Micron-thick Films Tear Before Molecular Forces Matter

Thin liquid films often rupture while they are still a few microns thick—far earlier than classical theory predicts. This matters, for example, in the development of spray systems, foams or coatings. The key... (Read more)

12 May 2026

A liquid drop impacting a rigid non-wetting substrate starts spreading laterally (top column), whereas an elastic sphere deforms slightly and bounces off (bottom column). A new work bridges these two limits and offers a general framework for liquid-to-elastic transitions. Image copyright: Front cover image from S. Jana et al., Soft Matter 22, 2226-2236 (2026), https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SM01078K licensed under CC BY 3.0 by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

12 May 2026

Impact with Memory: How Soft Materials Bridge Liquids and Elastics

Even a familiar phenomenon like a bounce can reveal new insights into the properties of soft matter, as a new study by researchers from, among others, the SoftComp partner Durham University, UK, demonstrates... (Read more)

25 November 2025

Two charged rods in water and counterions, generated with AI, ChatGTP, by the authors of the paper

25 November 2025

Rod-Shaped Colloids Form Wigner Crystal

A long-standing scientific belief has been overturned: researchers from a SoftComp collaboration including Ca’ Foscari Univ. of Venice, Italy, and Univ. of Bordeaux, France, have observed a Wigner crystal forming in rod-like colloidal... (Read more)

6 February 2025

Figure 1: Aspect ratio is a crucial network building block property, defining network formation, architecture, and mechanics in synthetic and living systems. (Left) Schematic representation of the aspect ratios (AR) of protein L polyprotein constructs and fibrin proto-fibers. (Middle) A schematic representation of the two dominated formation regimes: translation diffusion limited (TDL) where building blocks can only interact by translating their centre of mass; and rotationally diffusion limited (RDL) where building blocks are able to interact purely via rotation about their centre of mass. (Right) The fitted increase in mechanical rigidity as a function of aspect ratio with inserted schematics showing the change in structural topology as the system transitions from TDL to RDL formation above the critical aspect ratio, ARc. Copyright: Image partly published in Hughes M. D. G. et al., Nat. Commun. 14, 5593 (2023) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

6 February 2025

Biology Exploits Geometry

Impact of Aspect Ratio on Protein Network Assembly: Scientists at SoftComp partner University of Leeds and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have made an exciting discovery about the functional advantages of high aspect... (Read more)