Related papers: Structural transitions in sheared electrically sta…
In liquid-crystalline elastomers, the nematic order parameter and the induced strain vary smoothly across the isotropic-nematic transition, without the expected first-order discontinuity. To investigate this smooth variation, we measure the…
The yielding transition, structural relaxation, and mechanical properties of metallic glasses subjected to repeated loading are examined using molecular dynamics simulations. We consider a poorly-annealed Cu-Zr amorphous alloy periodically…
A transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior occurs when colloidal gels are subjected to a prolonged exposure to a steady shear. This phenomenon, which is characterized by a yielding point, is found to be strongly dependent on the…
A model for two-dimensional colloids confined laterally by "structured boundaries" (i.e., ones that impose a periodicity along the slit) is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. When the distance D between the confining walls is reduced at…
In many interesting physical settings, such as the vulcanization of rubber, the introduction of permanent random constraints between the constituents of a homogeneous fluid can cause a phase transition to a random solid state. In this…
Using Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations we investigate a dense system of charged colloids exposed to shear flow in a confined (slit-pore) geometry. The equilibrium system at zero flow consists of three, well-pronounced layers with…
We present a generalized Landau-Brazovskii theory for the solidification of chiral molecules on a spherical surface. With increasing sphere radius one encounters first intervals where robust achiral density modulations appear with…
Liquid electrolytes adsorbed at the surface of metallic electrodes display a multitude of structures that can largely differ from the parent bulk system, both in terms of composition and local organization. In particular, the existence of…
Thermoelastic phenomena associated with orientational phase transition in solid C60 are considered. Coupling of the order parameter with elastic strain is analyzed in the Landau theory of phase transitions. Wide range of possible…
Freezing of charged colloids on square or triangular two-dimensional periodic substrates has been recently shown to realize a rich variety of orientational orders. We propose a theoretical framework to analyze the corresponding structures.…
We present a generalized Landau-Brazovskii free energy for the solidification of chiral molecules on a spherical surface in the context of the assembly of viral shells. We encounter two types of icosahedral solidification transitions. The…
The rotational instability of the electric polarization P during phase transformations between ferroelectric phases is of great practical interest, since it may be accompanied by extremely large values of the piezoelectric coefficient, and…
Phase transformations can be difficult to characterize at the microscopic level due to the inability to directly observe individual atomic motions. Model colloidal systems, by contrast, permit the direct observation of individual particle…
We report results of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of a one-component glassy system under the influence of a shear flow, with the aim of investigating shear induced ordering of this system. In spite of the very low…
The raise of the symmetry breaking mechanism by Landau[1] is a landmark in the studies of phase transitions. The Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition[2-3] and the fractional quantum Hall effect[4], however, are believed to be induced by…
The spin-Peierls instability describes a structural transition of a crystal due to strong magnetic interactions. Here we demonstrate that cold Coulomb crystals of trapped ions provide an experimental testbed in which to study this complex…
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…
The Landau theory of phase transitions has been re-examined under the framework of a modified mean field theory in ferroelectrics. By doing so, one can see that there are two atomic movements involved in the ferroelectric phase transition;…
For a system of Brownian particles interacting via a soft exponential potential we investigate the interaction between equilibrium crystallization and spatially varying shear flow. For thermodynamic state points within the liquid part of…
The behavior of shear-oscillated amorphous materials is studied using a coarse-grained model. Samples are prepared at different degrees of annealing and then subject to athermal and quasistatic oscillatory deformations at various fixed…