Soft Matter

1.0 General policy

1.0 General policy

Soft Matter is a monthly journal publishing reviews and important original research in the form of communications and articles covering all soft materials and complex fluids. We aim to provide a forum for the communication of generic science underpinning the properties and applications of soft matter. Papers that describe applications and properties of soft matter set in context to the relevant science are also welcomed, but emphasis should be on the science rather than on the applications and properties themselves. The scope of Soft Matter includes original research on important synthetic and characterisation techniques, and on simulation and modelling of soft matter. Interactions of soft materials at interfaces and in biological systems are of particular interest.

Papers that mainly emphasise the synthesis and chemical/structural analysis of soft materials may be more suitable for publication in Dalton Transactions (inorganic chemistry) or Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry (organic chemistry). Papers concentrating on the physical chemistry of soft matter should be submitted to Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Main research areas include:

• (Bulk) soft-matter assemblies including polymers, colloids, gels, vesicles, emulsions, films, liquid crystals, dispersions, and supra-molecular chemistry.
• Soft nanotechnology and self-assembly including nano-structured polymeric materials, nanocomposites, molecular self-organisation, molecular imprinting, molecular recognition, and self-assembled films and monolayers.
• Biological aspects of soft matter including bio-macromolecules and biopolymers, membranes, biocomposites, bio-mimetic materials, and drug release and delivery methods (formulation).
• Surfaces, interfaces, and interactions including thin films, Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers, wetting/dewetting, soft interfaces and their interfacial properties, dynamics, rheology, hydro-dynamics, and interactions of molecules and colloids.
• Building blocks/synthetic methodology including new molecular architectures and new synthetic methodologies, and synthesis of the above compound classes.
• Theory, modelling, and simulation including comput-ational and thermodynamic studies of the above compound classes.   

Techniques for the characterisation and study of these materials are included in the scope but are not a focus in themselves, nor are applications. Rather, the emphasis is on the underlying generic science underpinning the properties and applications.