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Soft particles are known to overlap and form stable clusters that self-assemble into periodic crystalline phases with density-independent lattice constants. We use molecular dynamics simulations in two dimensions to demonstrate that,…
Polymers with both soluble and insoluble blocks typically self-assemble into micelles, aggregates of a finite number of polymers where the soluble blocks shield the insoluble ones from contact with the solvent. Upon increasing…
The "melting" of self-formed rigid structures made of a small number of interacting classical particles confined in an irregular two-dimensional space is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the interplay of…
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…
Liquid crystals with molecules constrained to the tangent bundle of a curved surface show interesting phenomena resulting from the tight coupling of the elastic and bulk free energies of the liquid crystal with geometric properties of the…
We find through computer simulations that the fractional volume change on freezing of polydisperse Lennard-Jones liquid decreases with increasing polydispersity and approaches zero near a terminal polydispersity of 0.11, independent of…
We present a computer simulation study of a (6,12)-Lennard-Jones fluid confined to a slit pore, formed by two uniform planes. These interact via (3,9)-Lennard-Jones potential with the fluid particles. When the fluid approaches the…
We investigate the crystallization of a single, flexible homopolymer chain using transition path sampling (TPS). The chain consists of N identical spherical monomers evolved according to Langevin dynamics. While neighboring monomers are…
In many cases, the stability of complex structures in colloidal systems is enhanced by a competition between different length scales. Inspired by recent experiments on nanoparticles coated with polymers, we use Monte Carlo simulations to…
An elastic surface model is investigated by using the canonical Monte Carlo simulation technique on triangulated spherical meshes. The model undergoes a first-order collapsing transition and a continuous surface fluctuation transition. The…
Two coarse-grained models for polymer chains in dense glass-forming polymer melts are studied by computer simulation: the bond-fluctuation model on a simple cubic lattice, where a bond-length potential favors long bonds, is treated by…
Monte Carlo simulation, experiment and continuum theory are used to examine the anchoring exhibited by a nematic liquid crystal at a patterned substrate comprising a periodic array of rectangles that, respectively, promote vertical and…
The formation of chain-folded structures from the melt is observed in molecular dynamics simulations resembling the lamellae of polymer crystals. Crystallization and subsequent melting temperatures are related linearly to the inverse…
Structural and thermodynamic properties of the model solution containing charged oligomers and the equivalent number of counterions were studied by means of the canonical Monte Carlo simulation technique. The oligomers are represented as…
We present a Monte Carlo simulation of a polymer nematic for varying volume fractions, concentrating on the structure function of the sample. We achieve nematic ordering with stiff polymers made of spherical monomers that would otherwise…
A theoretical analysis is presented of a nematic liquid crystal confined between substrates pat- terned with squares that promote vertical and planar alignment. Two approaches are used to eluci- date the behavior across a wide range of…
Recent developments of microscopic mechanical experiments allow the manipulation of individual polymer molecules in two main ways: \textit{uniform} stretching by external forces and \textit{non-uniform} stretching by external fields. Many…
When liquid-crystalline elastomers pass through the isotropic-nematic transition, the orientational order parameter and the elastic strain vary rapidly but smoothly, without the expected first-order discontinuity. This broadening of the…
The effects of an externally applied one-dimensional periodic potential on the freezing/melting behaviour of two-dimensional systems of colloidal particles with a short-range attractive interaction are studied using Monte Carlo simulations.…
Hard helices can be regarded as a paradigmatic elementary model for a number of natural and synthetic soft matter systems, all featuring the helix as their basic structural unit: from natural polynucleotides and polypeptides to synthetic…