We demonstrate a polarizer-free electro-optical switch using dye-doped liquid crystal (LC) gels. The mechanism of dye-doped LC gels mainly involves the combination of polymer scattering and dye absorption. However, the domain size of polymer networks, dye concentration, LC concentration, and fabrication process can all affect the phase separation process and thus result in dye-doped LC gels wit...

Properly fabricated polymer gels exhibit an abrupt change in volume in response to a small change in an environmental parameter, such as temperature. We have developed gels that change in volume in response to an applied alternating magnetic field, and we are working to apply these gels as actuators. This paper describes power electronic circuits suitable for electromagnetic activation of these...

Polymer gels that exhibit a change in volume in response to a small change in an environmental parameter such as temperature have been fabricated and studied for several decades. We have developed gels that change volume in response to an applied alternating magnetic field. These gels could serve as actuators in servomechanisms. This paper presents practical techniques for using closed-loop fee...

Hybrid polymer-network gels built by both physical and covalent polymer crosslinking combine the advantages of both these crosslinking types: they exhibit high mechanical strength along with excellent fracture toughness and extensibility. If these materials are extensively deformed, their physical crosslinks can break such that strain energy is dissipated and irreversible fracturing is restrict...

This thesis explores the physics of weakly interacting colloid-polymer mixtures. Colloid-polymer mixtures can consist of two kinds of interactions; depletion and adsorption. Both interactions can lead to colloidal aggregation and formation of space spanning gels that can bear stress. Depending on the range of the attractive interaction, depletion gels bear stress by two mechanisms; bond-stretch...

Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) have been complementarily employed in order to investigate the structure and dynamics of slide-ring (SR) gels, a class of novel polymer gels having advanced mechanical properties. SR gels consist of long flexible polymer chains and movable cross-links along the polymer chain. It is demonstrated that complementary use is ne...

The use of gels for the crystallization of small molecules and proteins has been studied during the last decades. Gel media removes convection and sedimentation controlling the transport processes by diffusion, and providing higher crystal quality [1,2]. Crystallisation of small molecules in gel media has been broadly described for hydrogels and, recently, it has been reported the use of organi...

Polymer gels are found in many applications ranging from foods (Ross-Murphy, 1995; Tunick, 2010) and drug delivery (Andrews & Jones, 2006) to adhesives (Creton, 2003) and consumer products (Solomon & Spicer, 2010). By manipulating the gel’s microstructure, a wide variety of physical properties can be achieved ranging from hard rubbery plastics to soft hydrogels. Silicone-based polymer gels in p...