Hydrogels have been developed since the 1960s for applications in personal care,
medicine, and engineering. Evidence has accumulated that hydrogels under prolonged …

A real polymer network is never perfect, but the quantification of network imperfection has
been elusive. Here we quantify the network imperfection of a polyacrylamide hydrogel …

Randomly distributed topological defects created during the spontaneous symmetry
breaking are the fingerprints to trace the evolution of symmetry, range of interaction, and …

Materials failure in 3D still poses basic challenges. We study 3D brittle crack dynamics using
a phase-field approach, where Gaussian quenched disorder in the fracture energy is …

Hydrogels are highly hydrated polymer networks. The synergistic association of a fluid and
an elastic phase is the key of numerous applications of hydrogels as food or cosmetic …

Topological defects with symmetry-breaking phase transitions have captured much
attention. A vortex generated by topological defects exhibits exotic properties, and its flow …

When brittle hydrogels fail, several mechanisms conspire to alter the state of stress near the
tip of a crack, and it is challenging to identify which mechanism is dominant. In the fracture of …

Current metal film-based electronics, while sensitive to external stretching, typically fail via
uncontrolled cracking under a relatively small strain (~ 30%), which restricts their practical …

The performance of soft devices is limited by the fracture resistance of elastomers. Thus,
understanding how fracture resistance changes with material and sample geometry is an …

Brittle solids typically fail by growth and propagation of a crack from a surface flaw. This
process is modelled using linear elastic fracture mechanics, which parameterizes the …