The phase behavior of connected hard and soft particles.

A surprising new development in materials science and chemical engineering is the finding that mixtures of hard (colloidal) and soft (polymeric or micellar) particles can self organize in long length scales. This kind of self assembly has applications in making tunable and thermo-responsive as well as pressure responsive materials that are useful in sensors, etc.In this project we explore the behavior of connected hard- and soft particles. Objectives: 

1) Developing very simple models of connected hard and soft particles. 

2) Determining the structure and thermodynamic properties of such particles.