Recently, polymer optical fibre dosimeters have been proposed for use in radiation oncology. Prior to clinical acceptance the effects of radiation on the materials involved must be assessed. In this work, the effects of radiation on mechanical strength and power transmission of polymer optical fibres were investigated. The fibres were subject to high energy electrons and photons generated by a ...

Photoinduced alterations of light-sensitive artifacts represent one of the main problems that conservators and curators have to face for environmental control in museums and galleries. Therefore, increasing attention has been recently devoted to developing strategies of indoor light monitoring, especially aimed at minimizing the cumulated light exposure for the objects on exhibit. In this work ...

Interaction between polymers and soft-matter surfaces in the biological cell is a common yet incompletely understood phenomenon. This work investigates a generic situation where a thermoresponsive polymer gel is placed in the vicinity of an adsorbing surface, and starts contracting. The force is mediated by polymer chains that partially attach to the surface and partially to the contracting gel...

Gel becomes an important class of soft materials since it can be seen in a wide variety of the chemical and the biological systems. The unique properties of gel arise from the structure, namely, the three-dimensional polymer network that is swollen by a huge amount of solvent. Despite the small volume fraction of the polymer network, which is usually only a few percent or less, gel shows the ty...

Recent advances in the study of ionic liquids based gel polymer electrolytes have been briefly reviewed in view of their electrochemical applications, particularly, their application as electrolytes in supercapacitors. The incorporation of ionic liquids in gel polymer electrolytes, instead of organic solvents like propylene carbonate, ethylene carbonate, etc., provide added effect in terms of t...