In our day-to-day life, we observe many forms of matter that are neither solid nor liquid. For example, foam, paste, gel, shaving cream, cake, liquid crystal display, a pile of sand, paints, and any biological cells. This wide variety of materials systems are composed of materials like colloids, polymers, micelles, liquid crystals, and emulsions, whose mesoscopic length scales (intermediate between molecular and macroscopic dimensions) and the corresponding differences in the time and energy scales offer behavior that is strikingly different from the conventional condensed matter. Understanding the behavior of these systems, within a single framework, forms a vibrant discipline termed the soft condensed matter or in short, soft matter. The aim of this course is to emphasize the generic features common to various soft materials and develop simple models accounting for their behavior. Subsequently, we will demonstrate how such methods allow understanding some of the interesting features of everyday life and of the intriguing biological systems.
Prerequisite: Fundamentals of statistical thermodynamics, and condensed matter physics.
Rules of the Game:
- The responsibility is entirely of the students to make sure that they have read this write-up carefully and understood the following points as they will be strictly followed during the course.
- Full attendance (100%) is mandatory. If a student is absent too often, he/she will be deregistered from the course.
- At the end of the course, total marks will be given out of 100 marks. The following split-up, amounting to a total of 100, will be used for the distribution:
Assignments – 10
Quizzes – 20
Mid-semester – 30
End-semester paper – 40
- Anything below 40 will warrant an F grade. Other grades will be assigned relatively.
- The course would run in “live mode”.
- Here are the revised class timings: Wednesday: 18h30 - 20h00, Saturday: 11h00 - 12h30
- The first class will be held over Zoom as per the following schedule:
Topic: PHY616A Soft Matter Physics - Class 1
Link: https://iitk-ac-in.zoom.us/j/95657270003?pwd=TjByWUdFQ2NxaEFjYVQ3ZWZtSGlHZz09
Meeting ID: 989 3811 4772
Passcode: 032925
- Assignments will be given at the end of each module, which shall be submitted within the proposed date and time. The files should be named following the format, “LastName_Roll No_AssignmentX”, where X is the assignment number. Assignment submissions via MOOKIT will ONLY be considered for grading.
- We will have 3 – 4 quizzes and all quizzes will be surprise quizzes.
- There will be no end-semester exam. You will be asked to choose a topic, from a list of topics provided by the instructor, and make a detailed presentation. This presentation will be graded and used as your end-semester marks.
- Professional ethics will be given significant importance and those found using any unprofessional, and unfair means will be handled very strictly and zero-tolerance policy will be adopted in such cases. Students found blatant copying and faking the attendance will get an F grade.