Related papers: The microscopic pathway to crystallization in supe…
The mode-coupling theory of the glass transition treats the dynamics of supercooled liquids in terms of two-point density correlation functions. Here we consider a generalized, hierarchical formulation of schematic mode-coupling equations…
We investigate the role of large amplitude sub-critical thermal fluctuations in the dynamics of first order phase transitions. In particular, we obtain a kinetic equation for the number density of sub-critical fluctuations of the…
According to classical nucleation theory, a crystal grows from a small nucleus that already bears the symmetry of its end phase - but experiments with colloids now reveal that, from an amorphous precursor, crystallites with different…
The orientation fluctuations of the director of a liquid crystal are measured, by a sensitive polarization interferometer, close to the Fr\'eedericksz transition, which is a second order transition driven by an electric field. Using mean…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
Computer simulations of the fluid-to-solid phase transition in the hard sphere system were instrumental for our understanding of crystallization processes. But while colloid experiments and theory have been predicting the stability of…
Understanding the pathways to crystallization during the deposition of a vapor phase on a cold solid substrate is of great interest in industry, e.g., for the realization of electronic devices made of crystallites-free glassy materials, as…
Understanding polymorph selection in atomic and molecular systems and its control through thermodynamic conditions and external factors (such as seed characteristics) is fundamental to the design of targeted materials and holds great…
The transition of a fluid to a rigid glass upon cooling is a common route of transformation from liquid to solid that embodies the most poorly understood features of both phases1,2,3. From the liquid perspective, the puzzle is to understand…
We have carried out computer simulations of overcompressed suspensions of hard monodisperse ellipsoids and observed their crystallization dynamics. The system was compressed very rapidly in order to reach the regime of slow, glass-like…
In this experiment a steady state current is maintained through a liquid crystal thin film. When the applied voltage is increased through a threshold, a phase transition is observed into a convective state characterized by the chaotic…
We investigate a phase separation instability that occurs in a system of nearly elastically colliding hard spheres driven by a thermal wall. If the aspect ratio of the confining box exceeds a threshold value, granular hydrostatics predict…
We investigate the energetics of droplets sourced by the thermal fluctuations in a system undergoing a first-order transition. In particular, we confine our studies to two dimensions with explicit calulations in the plane and on the sphere.…
We study a chemical gelation model in two dimensions which includes both monomer aggregations and bond fluctuations. Our numerical simulation shows that a sol-gel transition occurs when an initial monomer concentration is above a critical…
We propose a geometrical characterization of amorphous liquid structures that suppress crystallization by competing locally with crystalline order. We introduce for this purpose the crystal affinity of a liquid, a simple measure of its…
We present a framework that aims to investigate the role of thermal fluctuations of the matter composition and color-superconductivity in the nucleation of three-flavor deconfined quark matter in the typical conditions of high-energy…
A key feature of the crystallization of supercooled water confined in an applied static electric field is that the structural order here is determined not only by usual thermodynamic and kinematic factors (degree of supercooling, difference…
We find an order-disorder transition from crystals to disordered crystals for static packings of frictionless spheres. While the geometric indicators are mostly blind to the transition, disordered crystals already exhibit properties apart…
Ultracold polar molecules, in highly anisotropic traps and interacting via a repulsive dipolar potential, may form one-dimensional chains at high densities. According to classical theory, at low temperatures there exists a critical value of…
We consider the nucleation process associated with capillary condensation of a vapor in a hydrophobic cylindrical pore (capillary evaporation). The liquid-vapor transition is described within the framework of a simple lattice model. The…