Soft matter

thumb|right|Cetyl palmitate, a typical [[wax ester]] thumb|Commercial honeycomb foundation, made by pressing beeswax between patterned metal rollers

thumb|upright=0.8|Appearance of real linear polymer chains as recorded using an atomic force microscope on a surface, under liquid medium. Chain [[contour length for this polymer is ~204 nm; thickness is ~0.4 nm.]]

A colloid is a mixture in which one substance, consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles, is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others extend the definition to include substances like aerosols and gels. The term colloidal suspension refers unambiguously to the overall mixture (although a narrower sense of the word suspension is distinguished from colloids by larger particle size). A colloid has a dispersed phase (the suspended particles) and a continuous phase (the medium of suspension). thu

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state of matter with properties of both conventional liquids and crystals

selectively permeable membrane that separates the interior of a cell from the external environment or creates intracellular compartments by serving as a boundary between one part of the cell and another

layer enriched with ions of opposite charge to that carried by a solid surface to maintain electroneutrality in solution

toy putty (slime) based on silicone polymers and boric acid

subfield of condensed matter comprising a variety of physical systems that are deformed or structurally altered by thermal or mechanical stress of the magnitude of thermal fluctuations

thumb|right|Gelatin, here in sheets for cooking, is a hydrogel. thumb|Peptide hydrogel formation shown by the inverted vial method.

cloudy emulsion resulting from adding water to ouzo

physical force that originates from thermodynamics instead of fundamental interactions

family of several different effects that occur in heterogeneous fluids, or in porous bodies filled with fluid, or in a fast flow over a flat surface

In chemistry and chemical physics, a mesophase or mesomorphic phase is a phase of matter intermediate between solid and liquid. Gelatin is a common example of a partially ordered structure in a mesophase. Further, biological structures such as the lipid bilayers of cell membranes are examples of mesophases. Mobile ions in mesophases are either orientationally or rotationally disordered while their centers are located at the ordered sites in the crystal structure. Mesophases with long-range positional order but no orientational order are plastic crystals, whereas those with long-range orientati

an emulsion that is stabilized by solid particles (for example colloidal silica) which adsorb onto the interface between the two phases

complex of molecules held together by noncovalent bonds

non-classical state of matter

subfield of materials science concerned with polymers such as plastics and elastomers

Microemulsions are clear, thermodynamically stable, isotropic liquid mixtures of oil, water and surfactant, frequently in combination with a cosurfactant. The aqueous phase may contain salt(s) and/or other ingredients, and the "oil" may actually be a complex mixture of different hydrocarbons. In contrast to ordinary emulsions, microemulsions form upon simple mixing of the components and do not require the high shear conditions generally used in the formation of ordinary emulsions. The three basic types of microemulsions are direct (oil dispersed in water, o/w), reversed (water dispersed in oil

an ordered array of colloid particles, analogous to a standard crystal whose repeating subunits are atoms or molecules

occurs when dispersed particles move under the influence of either gravity or centrifugation in a medium

dimensionless quantity that characterizes the contribution of the surface conductivity to various electrokinetic and electroacoustic effects, as well as to electrical conductivity and permittivity of fluid heterogeneous systems

matter behavior at system scale