biomimetic materials and polymers
Our group studies a range of soft-matter systems ranging from synthetic polymers to biomimetic systems. For example, we seek to use computer simulations to unravel the atomic scale features of ion-diffusion in conjugated polymers for applications in bioelectronics and energy storage. We also study so-called sequence defined polymers that mimic biomaterials found in nature like peptides.
One versatile class of materials are N-substituted glycines or peptoids. Working closely with experimental collaborators, we use computer simulations to understand fundamental kinetic and thermodynamic mechanisms related to peptoid self-assembly and structure-function relationships. This work requires careful development of empirical potentials (force fields) for molecular modeling as well as application of special simulation methods to increase the accessible length and time scales we can probe with our models.