Soft Matter Physics

Soft matter (polymers, colloids, surfactants and liquid crystals) are an important class of materials in modern technology. They also form the basis of many future technologies, for example in medical and environmental applications. Soft matter shows complex behaviour between fluids and solids, and used to be a synonym of complex materials. Due to the developments of the past two decades, soft condensed matter can now be discussed on the same sound physical basis as solid condensed matter. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of soft matter for undergraduate and graduate students in physics and materials science.
The book provides an introduction to soft matter (what it is, and what are the characteristics of such materials), and also provides the reader with the physical basis for understanding and discussing such characteristics in more detail. Many basic concepts, which are required in advanced courses of condensed matter physics, such as coarse graining, scaling, phase separation, order-disorder transition, Brownian motion, and fluctuation-dissipation theorem, are explained in detail with various forms of soft matter used as examples.

Masao Doi graduated from the Department of Applied Physics of University of Tokyo in 1970. In 1976 he received his Doctoral Degree in Engineering at the University of Tokyo and began his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Physics at the Tokyo Metropolitan University. He moved to Nagoya University in 1989 and to Tokyo University in 2004. He retired from Tokyo University in 2012, and is now working as a fellow of Toyota Physical and Chemical Research Institute.
His early research was concerned with the dynamics and rheology of flexible polymers, especially with developing a theoretical description of the role of molecular entanglements for determining the transport properties to flexible polymer solutions and melts. He then worked on various aspects of the rheological properties of soft matter, polymers, liquid crystals, colloidal suspensions and gels. His current research is focused on the surface phenomena of polymers, such as adhesion, friction, and drying.

- 1: What is soft matter - 2: Soft matter solutions - 3: Elastic soft matter - 4: Surfaces and surfactants - 5: Liquid crystals - 6: Brownian motion and thermal fluctuations - 7: Variational principle in soft matter dynamics - 8: Diffusion and permeation in soft matter - 9: Flow and deformation of soft matter - 10: Ionic soft matter - Appendix A: Continuum mechanics - Appendix B: Restricted free energy - Appendix C: Variational calculus - Appendix D: Reciprocal relation - Appendix E: Statistical mechanics for material response and fluctuations - Appendix F: Derivation of the Smoluchowskii equation from the Langevin equation