Principal Investigator

David R Williams Applied Mathematics, RSPhysSE, Australian National University

Project Title

Dynamics of Nanoparticle Aggregates in Isolation and Near Rigid and Fluctuating Surfaces

Brief Description for General Publications

We are interested in exploring the dynamics of aggregates of nanoscopic particles in isolation and near simple and complex interfaces. A simple example of an aggregate of particles is a polymer molecule, which can be thought of as a chemically bound chain of small particles. At the small length scales of nano- or micron-sized particles, Brownian motion becomes dominant. In addition, the motion of any particle perturbs the surrounding solvent, and thereby influences the motion of all other particles in the cluster. Describing such hydrodynamic interactions is crucial to the correct prediction of the statistics of structural and dynamical evolution of the aggregate. The hydrodynamic interactions between the particles in the aggregate are strongly modified by walls. Moreover, if the “wall” is itself flexible and subject to thermal (Brownian) fluctuations (as in a fluid-fluid interface, or a lipid-bilayer membrane), then the motions of an aggregate and a nearby fluctuating wall are coupled. In this Project, we aim to use sophisticated Brownian Dynamics simulations to develop a predictive understanding of a) the dynamics of single particles, particle clusters, and polymers near surfaces, and b) the dynamics of isolated polymers, and polymer-particle systems.