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Micrometre sized colloidal particles can be viewed as large atoms with tailorable size, shape and interactions. These building blocks can assemble into extremely rich structures and phases, in which the thermal motions of particles can be…
The classification of structural phase transitions as displacive or order-disorder in character is usually based on spectroscopic data above the transition. We use single crystal x-ray diffraction to investigate structural correlations in…
We consider a model dense colloidal dispersion at the glass transition, and investigate the connection between equilibrium stress fluctuations, seen in linear shear moduli, and the shear stresses under strong flow conditions far from…
Monte Carlo simulations have been performed for aqueous charged colloidal suspensions as a function of charge density on the particles and salt concentration. We vary the charge density in our simulations over a range where a reentrant…
Signatures of the vulcanization transition--amorphous solidification induced by the random crosslinking of macromolecules--include the random localization of a fraction of the particles and the emergence of a nonzero static shear modulus. A…
The presence of frozen-in or quenched disorder in a system can often modify the nature of its phase transition. A particular instance of this phenomenon is the so-called rounding effect: it has been shown in many cases that the free-energy…
A continuum theory of partially fluidized granular flows is developed. The theory is based on a combination of the equations for the flow velocity and shear stresses coupled with the order parameter equation which describes the transition…
In the vicinity of their glass transition, dense colloidal suspensions acquire elastic properties over experimental timescales. We investigate the possibility of a visco-elastic flow instability in curved geometry for such materials. To…
The order parameters of the magnetic, charge and structural orders at half-doped manganites are identified. A corresponding Landau theory of the phase transitions is formulated. Many structural and thermodynamical behaviors are accounted…
Chirality, ubiquitous in complex biological systems, can be controlled and quantified in synthetic materials such as cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) systems. In this work, we study spherical shells of CLC under weak anchoring conditions.…
A quantum critical point is approached by applying pressure in a number of magnetic metals. The observed dependence of Tc on pressure necessarily means that the magnetic energy is coupled to the lattice. A first order phase transition…
Pipe flow and many other shear flows show a transition to turbulence at flow rates for which the laminar profile is stable against infinitesimal perturbations. In this brief review the recent progress in the understanding of this transition…
A new model that describes adsorption and clustering of particles on a surface is introduced. A {\it clustering} transition is found which separates between a phase of weakly correlated particle distributions and a phase of strongly…
Crystals are a state of matter characterised by periodic order. Yet crystalline materials can harbour disorder in many guises, such as non-repeating variations in composition, atom displacements, bonding arrangements, molecular…
The mechanical properties of a solid, which relate its deformation to external applied forces, are key factors in enabling or disabling the use of an otherwise optimal material in any application, strongly influencing also its service…
In recent experiments on sodium chloride clusters structural transitions between nanocrystals with different cuboidal shapes were detected. Here we presents results for the thermodynamics and dynamics of one of these clusters, (NaCl)35Cl-.…
At high pressure, the typical behavior of elements dictated by the periodic table - including oxidation numbers, stoichiometries in compounds, and reactivity, to name but a few - is altered dramatically. As pressure is applied, the…
We use Brownian Dynamics simulations in combination with the umbrella sampling technique to study the effect of shear flow on homogeneous crystal nucleation. We find that a homogeneous shear rate leads to a significant suppression of the…
The interplay between the structural relaxation and the rheological response of a binary LJ glass former is studied via MD simulations. In the quiescent state, the model is well known for its sluggish dynamics and a two step relaxation of…
We investigate through numerical simulations how a two-dimensional crystal yields and flows under an applied shear. We focus over a range that allows us to both address the response in the limit of an infinitesimal shear rate and describe…