Soft condensed matter science is a still increasingly important interdisciplinary field of research. It deals with various generally heterogeneous materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and gels, emulsions, liquid crystals, foams and most biological matter. A major concern of soft condensed matter science is to obtain a better understanding of the macroscopic physical properties (e.g. rheological, viscoelastic, optical, electric and magnetic, wetting, etc.) of such materials based on the structure and interactions on molecular, macromolecular and often even larger length scales. Because of the softness of these materials fluctuations and disorder are very significant and their proper theoretical description may be rather subtle. Recent progress in the field of soft condensed matter physics originates from the development of novel experimental and theoretical methods combined with the increasing use of numerical simulations. It also strongly benefits from the chemical synthesis of novel materials with specifically designed properties. The growing knowledge of the physics of soft condensed matter also impacts on the understanding of many biological processes and biomaterials and, as a natural consequence, many soft matter scientists move more and more into biological or bio-inspired topics. The research of this IRTG focuses on the structural, rheological, optical and magnetic properties of model systems of soft matter. These include single synthetic and biopolymers such as DNA, polymer melts and gels, membranes, giant vesicles and artificial cells, foams, colloidal suspensions, colloidal crystals and levitated granular matter. This research involves many collaborations, links and comparative studies between experiment, theory and numerical simulation.
