Computer simulations of polyelectrolyte stars and brushes

We briefly review results pertaining to the conformations, interactions and phase behavior of two related soft matter systems: star-branched polyelectrolytes and spherical polyelectrolyte brushes. Moreover, we present new results on the complexation of stars with oppositely charged, spherical, hard colloids, demonstrating the versatility of these systems to form novel complexes that result in a variety of patchy colloids, whose morphology can be affected by small amounts of added salt. Finally, we demonstrate that spherical polyelectrolyte brushes with low grafting density have distinct characteristics from dense brushes as regards the condensation of counterions. Here, condensation of counterions takes place along the rods and the brush conformation seems to be much more robust to added salt than that of star polyelectrolytes. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)