ABSTRACT
Soft matter science is the study of materials that are physically “soft,” and this book is an introduction to the science behind these materials. But, what does it mean to be soft? The concept of a soft material can be applied to many different substances, ranging from relatively hard plastics and rubbers all the way to a variety of apparently liquid-like materials, such as polymer solutions or colloidal suspensions. A more precise definition of a soft material is therefore complicated somewhat by the huge range of physical properties observed in these systems. Pierre-Gilles De Gennes, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist, characterized soft matter as a class of materials that give a “large response to small perturbations.”1 This idea provides us with a clear and straightforward description. Any material that deforms easily under an external stimulus (e.g., mechanical deformation, electric or magnetic fields, etc.) is “soft.”
