Soft materials,including various natural and synthetic polymers, form hierarchical structuresthat range from nano- to macroscopic scales. We strive to elucidate the physical properties and formation processes of such hierarchical structures, which will contribute to the formulation of design guidelines for environmentally-suitable materials.
Specifically, we investigate the following:

• Structures and material properties of block and supramolecular thermoplastic elastomers;
• Structures and dynamics of chemical and physical gels;
• Development of new materials using polysaccharides;
• Flow-induced control of higher-order structures in polymer multicomponent systems