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The static and dynamical properties of heavy water have been studied at ambient conditions with extensive Car-Parrinello molecular-dynamics simulations in the canonical ensemble, with temperatures ranging between 325 K and 400 K.…
Thermoresponsive microgels find widespread use as colloidal model systems, because their temperature-dependent size allows facile tuning of their volume fraction "in situ". However, an interaction potential unifying their behavior across…
We report on quantitative comparisons between simulation results of a bead-spring model and mode-coupling theory calculations for the structural and conformational dynamics of a supercooled, unentangled polymer melt. We find…
We studied the phase behavior of charged and sterically stabilized colloids using confocal microscopy in a less polar solvent (dielectric constant 5.4). Upon increasing the colloid volume fraction we found a transition from a fluid to a…
The process of homogeneous crystal nucleation has been considered in a model liquid, where the interparticle interaction is described by a short-range spherical oscillatory potential. Mechanisms of initiating structural ordering in the…
Thermoresponsive microgels are soft colloids that find widespread use as model systems for soft matter physics. Their complex internal architecture, made of a disordered and heterogeneous polymer network, has been so far a major challenge…
We assess the validity of "microscopic" approaches of glass-forming liquids based on the sole k nowledge of the static pair density correlations. To do so we apply them to a benchmark provided by two liquid models that share very similar…
Recent theoretical advances show that the temperature of a system in equilibriumcan be measured from static snapshots of its constituents' instantaneous configurations, withoutregard to their dynamics. We report the first measurements of…
Stable ultracold ensembles of dipolar molecules hold great promise for many-body quantum physics, but high inelastic loss rates have been a long-standing challenge. Recently, it was shown that gases of fermionic molecules can be effectively…
Colloidal gels assembled from nanoparticles (NPs) are a versatile class of soft network-based materials capable of rich dynamic, mechanical, and even optical or magnetic responses to stimuli. Understanding how their hierarchically organized…
We construct colloidal ``sticky'' rods from the semi-flexible filamentous fd virus and temperature-sensitive polymers poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM). The phase diagram of fd-PNIPAM system becomes independent of ionic strength at high…
Attractive colloids diffuse and aggregate to form gels, solid-like particle networks suspended in a fluid. Gravity is known to strongly impact the stability of gels once they are formed. However, its effect on the process of gel formation…
Arguably the most ubiquitous construction material in modern civilization, concrete is enabling the development of megacities around the globe together with increasing living standards in developing nations. However, it can be argued that…
We develop a new quantitative molecular theory of liquid-phase dipolar polymer gels. We model monomer units of the polymer network as a couple of charged sites separated by a fluctuating distance. For the first time, within the random phase…
A solid - amorphous or crystalline - is defined by a finite shear modulus while a fluid lacks such. We thus experimentally investigate the elastic properties of a colloidal glass former near the glass transition: spectroscopy of vibrational…
A core-softened model of a glass forming fluid is numerically studied in the limit of very low temperatures. The model shows two qualitatively different behaviors depending on the strength of the attraction between particles. For no or low…
Colloidal gels are out of equilibrium soft solids composed of attractive Brownian particles that form a space-spanning network at low volume fractions. The elastic properties of these systems result from the network microstructure, which is…
We report on extensive molecular dynamics simulations on systems of soft spheres of functionality f, i.e. particles that are capable of bonding irreversibly with a maximum of f other particles. These bonds are randomly distributed…
Confinement can modify the dynamics, the thermodynamics and the structural properties of liquid water, the prototypical anomalous liquid. By considering a general anomalous liquid, suitable for globular proteins, colloids or liquid metals,…
The glass transition GT is usually thought of as a structural arrest that occurs during the cooling of a liquid, or sometimes a plastic crystal, trapping a metastable state of the system before it can recrystallize to stabler forms1. This…