Related papers: Topological phonon modes and their role in dynamic…
Topological phase transitions occur when the electronic bands change their topological properties, typically featuring the closing of the bandgap. While the influence of topological phase transitions on electronic and optical properties has…
Topological metamaterials exhibit unusual behaviors at their boundaries, such as unidirectional chiral waves, that are protected by a topological feature of their band structure. The ability to tune such a material through a topological…
Optical lattice systems offer the possibility of creating and tuning Dirac points which are present in the tight-binding lattice dispersions. For example, such a behavior can be achieved in the staggered flux lattice or honeycomb type of…
Self-assembled molecular structures have been intensively used in molecular electronics and spintronics. However, detailed nature of the interfaces between molecular layers and extended metallic contacts used to bias the real devices…
Continuum lattice grid structures which consist of joined elastic beams subject to flexural deformations are ubiquitous. In this work, we establish a theoretical framework of the topological dynamics of continuum lattice grid structures,…
Many cellular processes are tightly connected to the dynamics of microtubules (MTs). While in neuronal axons MTs mainly regulate intracellular trafficking, they participate in cytoskeleton reorganization in many other eukaryotic cells,…
Thermal management is extremely important for designing high-performance devices. The lattice thermal conductivity of materials is strongly dependent on the structural defects at different length scales, particularly point defects like…
Nonlinearities in lattices with topological band structures can induce topological interfaces in the bulk of structures and give rise to bulk solitons in the topological bandgaps. Here we study a photonic Chern insulator with saturable…
We present a systematic study of the influence of cell geometry on the orientational distribution of microtubules (MTs) nucleated from a single microtubule organizing center (MTOC). For simplicity we consider an elliptical cell geometry, a…
Gyroscopic metamaterials --- mechanical structures composed of interacting spinning tops --- have recently been found to support one-way topological edge excitations. In these structures, the time reversal symmetry breaking that enables…
We develop a general theory of microtubule (MT) deformations by molecular motors generating internal force doublets within the MT lattice. We describe two basic internal excitations, the S and V shape, and compare them with experimental…
Topological media are systems whose properties are protected by topology and thus are robust to deformations of the system. In topological insulators and superconductors the bulk-surface and bulk-vortex correspondence gives rise to the…
The microtubule cytoskeleton is responsible for sustained, long-range intracellular transport of mRNAs, proteins, and organelles in neurons. Neuronal microtubules must be stable enough to ensure reliable transport, but they also undergo…
Topology is an important degree of freedom in characterizing electronic systems. Recently, it also brings new theoretical frontiers and many potential applications in photonics. However, the verification of the topological nature is highly…
Microtubule dynamic instability arises from the hydrolysis of GTP bound to the beta-monomer of the tubulin dimer. The conformational change induced by hydrolysis is unknown, but microtubules disassemble into protofilaments of GDP-bound…
Localized modes in one dimensional topological systems, such as Majonara modes in topological superconductors, are promising platforms for robust information processing. In one dimensional topological insulators, mobile topological solitons…
We study the magnon spectrum of stacked zig-zag chains of point magnetic dipoles with an easy axis. The anisotropy due to the dipolar interactions and the two-point basis of the zig-zag chain unit cell combine to give rise to topologically…
Spindles are self-organized microtubule-based structures that segregate chromosomes during cell division. The mass of the spindle is controlled by the balance between microtubule turnover and nucleation. The mechanisms that control the…
Dynamical control of Berry curvature remains an outstanding challenge in the engineering of topological phases. Here, we demonstrate control of magnon band structures via coherently driven phonons, based on \textit{ab initio} spin-lattice…
We investigate the dynamics of an active gel of bundled microtubules that is driven by clusters of kinesin molecular motors. Upon the addition of ATP, the coordinated action of thousands of molecular motors drives the gel to a highly…