Tuesday, 01 March, 2011

Model system delivers vital clues on the aging processes of elastic polymers

Relaxation leads to lower elasticity

 

© Nature Materials, 10, 237 (2011)

Not only people suffer the ravages of time. As they age, many materials exhibit changes in their properties, as well. Although such phenomena crop up in many domains, the underlying processes are oftentimes not fully understood. Particularly interesting in this context are polymer materials found in plastics and in biological systems. A group led by physicists from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) has succeeded in casting light on essential aspects of these processes. They present their results in Nature Materials.

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Publication "Slow dynamics and internal stress relaxation in bundled cytoskeletal networks"