The latest special issue from the Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Physics brings together feature articles and full papers from up-and-coming scientists already working at the cutting edge of their field – and it’s all free to read.

The breadth of the topics of the contributions highlights how widely polymer physics and the physics of polymeric systems now impacts a variety of applications, from areas as diverse as protein polymer physics, adaptable polymer composites and thin film patterning to computation and theory, stimuli-responsive polymers and energy applications like solar cells and batteries. A full list of topics and authors with links to individual articles is below.

Guest editors Thomas Epps, III (University of Delaware) and Mahesh Mahanthappa (University of Wisconsin—Madison) have put together an issue that represents the future of the field, both in topic and investigators. We’re happy to see that that future is a bright one, and that this vibrant field encapsulating polymer physics concepts and approaches will be solving problems and helping to create new technologies for years to come.

Click here to read the whole issue online – and be sure to try reading the papers with our new ReadCube option, which gives you a more functional PDF experience from clickable references always available on the screen’s right-hand side to article-level metrics to show you who’s talking about each paper on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. All our PDFs are now available in this form.

For more information on submitting your next paper to the Journal of Polymer Science: Polymer Physics, click here.

Contributions to the special issue

Feature articles:

Nandula D. Wanasekara and LaShanda Korley (Case Western Reserve University) – Towards Tunable and Adaptable Polymer Composites

Jared Mike and Jodie Lutkenhaus (Texas A&M University) – Recent advances in conjugated polymers for energy storage

Moon Jeong Park and Sung Yeong Kim (Pohang University of Science and Technology) – Ion Transport in Sulfonated Polymers

Misang Yoo, Seyong Kim and Joona Bang (Korea University) – Design and Fabrication of Thermally Stable Nanoparticles for Well-Defined Nanocomposites

Jacob Ray, Ashley Johnson and Dan Savin (University of Southern Mississippi) – Self-Assembly and Responsiveness of Polypeptide-based Block Copolymers: How ‘Smart’ Behavior and Topological Complexity Yield Unique Assembly in Aqueous Media

Arthi Jayaraman (University of Colorado – Boulder) – Polymer Grafted Nanoparticles: Effect of Chemical and Physical Heterogeneity in Polymer Grafts on Particle Assembly and Dispersion

Dustin Janes, Joshua Katzenstein, Kadhiravan Shanmuganathan and Christopher Ellison (University of Texas at Austin) – Directing Convection to Pattern Thin Polymer Films

Shusheng Zhang and Zhibo Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences) – Stimuli-Responsive Polypeptide Materials Prepared by Ring-Opening Polymerization of α-amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides

Amanda Marciel and Charles Schroeder (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) – New Directions in Single Polymer Dynamics

Hyungju Ahn, Yonghoon Lee, Hoyeon Lee, Yoonkeun Kim, Du Yeol Ryu and Byeongdu Lee (Yonsei University) – Substrate Interaction Effects on Order to Disorder Transition Behavior in Block Copolymer Films

Chuan Zhang, Yunlong Guo and Rodney Priestley (Princeton University) – Confined Glassy Properties of Polymer Nanoparticles

Minkyu Kim, Shengchang Tang and Bradley Olsen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) – Physics of Engineered Protein Hydrogels

Full papers:

Nikhila Mahadevapuram, Joseph Strzalka and Gila E. Stein (University of Houston) – Grazing-incidence transmission small angle X-ray scattering from thin films of block copolymers

Leslie H. Jimison, Scott Himmelberger, Duc T. Duong, Jonathan Rivnay, Michael F. Toney and Alberto Salleo (Stanford University) – Vertical confinement and interface effects on the microstructure and charge transport of P3HT thin films