Related papers: Colloidal crystal growth at externally imposed nuc…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…
The condensational growth of spherical water microdroplets is studied in a laboratory setup and with a mathematical model. In the experiment, droplet clusters are kept in a freely levitated state within an upward-oriented flow of water…
A simple model of an active colloid consisting of dumbbell-shaped particles that cyclically change their length without propelling themselves is proposed and analyzed. At nanoscales, it represents an idealization for bacterial cytoplasm or…
Depending on the pH value and salt concentration of Al2O3 suspensions different microstructures can form. Especially the clustered one is of major interest for industrial purposes as found in the production of ceramics. In this paper we…
Systems comprised of self-steering active Brownian particles are studied via simulations for a minimal cognitive flocking model. The dynamics of the active Brownian particles is extended by an orientational response with limited…
We examine binary mixtures of superparamagnetic colloidal particles confined to a two-dimensional water-air interface both by real-space experiments and Monte-Carlo computer simulations at high coupling strength. In the simulations, the…
Background: Neutron stars are astronomical systems with nucleons submitted to extreme conditions. Due to the longer range coulomb repulsion between protons, the system has structural inhomogeneities. Several interactions tailored to…
We study the spontaneous crystallization of an assembly of highly monodisperse steel spheres under shaking, as it evolves from localized icosahedral ordering towards a packing reaching crystalline ordering. Towards this end, real space…
Formation of monodispersed colloidal particles is a complex process: nuclei, produced rapidly in a supersaturated solution, grow to nanosize primary particles, which then aggregate (coagulate) to form much larger final colloids. This paper…
Near-equilibrium bottom-up crystallization of fully-ionized neutron star crusts or white dwarf cores is considered. We argue that this process is similar to liquid-phase epitaxial (i.e. preserving order of previous layers) crystal growth or…
This thesis can be divided into two independent parts. In the first part of this thesis, we focus on studying the kinetic pathways of nucleation in colloidal systems. In Chapter 2, we briefly introduce the relevant theory of nucleation,…
We investigate two-dimensional crystal assemblies formed by a binary mixture of colloidal particles with a size ratio of 0.88 and driven by short-ranged depletion interactions. Our experiments show that the orientational order of the…
The addition of enough non-adsorbing polymer to an otherwise stable colloidal suspension gives rise to a variety of phase behavior and kinetic arrest due to the depletion attraction induced between the colloids by the polymers. We report a…
The dynamics of homogeneous nucleation and growth of crystalline nickel from the super-cooled melt is examined during rapid quenching using molecular dynamics and a modified embedded atom method potential. The character of the critical…
We use Brownian dynamics simulations and theory to study the over-damped spatiotemporal dynamics and pattern formation in a fluid-permeated array of equally spaced, active, elastic filaments that are pinned at one end and free at the other.…
Driven or self-propelling particles moving in viscoelastic fluids recently emerge as novel class of active systems showing a complex yet rich set of phenomena due to the non-Newtonian nature of the dispersing medium. Here we investigate the…
The study of the internal structure of star clusters provides important clues concerning their formation mechanism and dynamical evolution. There are both observational and numerical evidences indicating that open clusters evolve from an…
Molecular dynamics simulations for aqueous sodium chloride solutions were carried out at various concentrations. Supplementary to the Debye-H\"uckel theory, reversible transient nucleation of ions was observed even in dilute solutions. The…
We study the effects of the optical binding force on wavelength sized colloidal particles free to move in a counter-propagating beam. This work is motivated by the concept of using optical binding to direct the assembly of large numbers of…
We study the coalescence of nanoscale metal clusters in an inert-gas atmosphere using constant-energy molecular dynamics. The coalescence proceeds via atomic diffusion with the release of surface energy raising the temperature. If the…