MasterNanosciences, nanotechnologies

Goal: The colloidal scale is the scale below the micrometer. The physics of soft matter is governed by weak interactions taking place at this scale, and which are at the source of the generic characteristics of soft matter systems: self-organisation at room temperature, importance of entropy and fluctuations, high susceptibility and response to stimulii, specific structures at surfaces and interfaces, slow dynamics. This course describes the non-specific interactions in soft matter systems and their measurements.  It introduces the basics of self-organization  in solution, and develops them on the example of self-assembled membranes.

Content
Interactions at the colloidal scale.
Van der Waals/Casimir interactions, Hamaker constant.
Electrostatic interactions, Debye's-Huckel and Gouy-Chapman double-layers.
Depletion interactions ; Helfrish interactions between membranes.
Measurements of weak interactions.
Self-organization of macromolecules in solution
Notions on the physics of membranes

Bibliography
Molecular and Surface forces, J.K. Israelachvili
Introduction to polymer physics, M. Doi

Prerequisites
General physics of the Bachelor Level. Electromagnetisms ; thermodynamics.
Maths : Fourier series, Fourier transforms, Dirac function,  and their use for solving linear partial differential equations.
A first course in statistical physics.