Related papers: Frustration of nanoconfined liquid crystals due to…
The effect of surface roughness on the structure of liquid crystalline fluids near solid substrates is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The liquid crystal is modelled as a fluid of soft ellipsoidal molecules and the substrate is modelled…
Through Monte Carlo simulations and the Associating Lattice Gas Model, the phases of a two-dimensional fluid under hydrophilic confinement are evaluated. The model, in its unconfined version, reproduces the anomalous behavior of water…
We present a Monte Carlo study of the surface anchoring of a nematic fluid on swollen layers of grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules. The liquid crystalline particles are modeled by soft repulsive ellipsoids, and the chains are made…
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…
Nanoconfinement can drastically change the behavior of liquids, puzzling us with counterintuitive properties. Moreover, it is relevant in applications, including decontamination and crystallization control. It still lacks a systematic…
The statistical-mechanical study of the equilibrium properties of fluids, starting from the knowledge of the interparticle interaction potential, is essential to understand the role that microscopic interaction between individual particles…
By means of a molecular model, we examine hybrid nematic films with antagonistic anchoring angles where one of the surfaces is in the strong anchoring regime. If anchoring at the other surface is weak, and in the absence of wetting by the…
Confinement breaks the translational symmetry of materials. Such symmetry breaking can be used to obtain configurations that are not otherwise accessible in the bulk. Here, we explore the effect of substrate-liquid interactions on the…
The properties of water can have a strong dependence on the confinement. Here, we consider a water monolayer nanoconfined between hydrophobic parallel walls under conditions that prevent its crystallization. We investigate, by simulations…
We describe the thermodynamic state of a highly confined single-phase and single-component fluid in a slit pore using Hill's thermodynamics of small systems. This theory was more recently named nanothermodynamics. We start by constructing…
We investigate the effect of an anisotropic substrate on the turbulent dynamics of a simulated two dimensional active nematic. This is introduced as an anisotropic friction and an effective anisotropic viscosity, with the orientation of the…
Recent measurements suggest the possibility to exploit ionic liquids (ILs) as smart lubricants for nano-contacts, tuning their tribological and rheological properties by charging the sliding interfaces. Following our earlier theoretical…
Two-dimensionally nanoconfined water between ideal planar walls has been the subject of ample study, aiming at understanding the intrinsic response of water to confinement, avoiding the consideration of the chemistry of actual confining…
We present a grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation study of the phase diagram of a Lennard-Jones fluid adsorbed in a fractal and highly porous aerogel. The gel environment is generated from an off-lattice diffusion limited cluster-cluster…
Liquids in contact with solids are submitted to intermolecular forces making liquids heterogeneous and stress tensors are not any more spherical as in homogeneous bulks. The aim of this article is to show that a square-gradient functional…
Computer simulations are presented of the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates a distance H apart. The plates are neutral and do not impose any anchoring on the particles. Depending on the…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
Superhydrophobicity is connected to the presence of gas pockets within surface asperities. Upon increasing the pressure this "suspended" state may collapse, causing the complete wetting of the rough surface. In order to quantitatively…
Active solids emerge from self-actuating components interacting with each other to form crystalline patterns. In equilibrium, commensurability underpins our understanding of nanoscale friction and particle-level dynamics of crystals.…
Water and water-mediated interactions determine thermodynamic and kinetics of protein folding, protein aggregation and self-assembly in confined spaces. To obtain insights into the role of water in the context of folding problems, we…