Department of Chemistry

Snapshot of a fully flexible coarse-grained model of silica aerogel. This structure was "grown" in a Langevin dynamics simulation incorporating a complex model of siloxane bridging bonds, and has structural and mechanical properties closely resembling those of real aerogels.  The color scheme indicates the number of bonds formed by each primary particle, with purple particles having the most, and red particles the least. Both the calculations and model development were performed in Lev Gelb's group.  Read more...