Related papers: Liquids more stable than crystals
In equilibrium, disorder conspires with topological defects to redefine the ordered states of matter in systems as diverse as crystals, superconductors and liquid crystals. Far from equilibrium, however, the consequences of quenched…
We study the structural and thermodynamic properties of patchy particle liquids, with a special focus on the role of "color", i.e. specific interactions between individual patches. A possible experimental realization of such "chromatic"…
Empty liquids represent a wide class of materials whose constituents arrange in a random network through reversible bonds. Many key insights on the physical properties of empty liquids have originated almost independently from the study of…
Colloidal glasses form from hard spheres, nearly hard spheres, ellipsoids and platelets or their attractive variants have been studied in detail. Complementing and checking theoretical approaches and simulations, the many different types of…
The thermodynamic stability of emulsions of liquid crystal in water (glycerol) matrices is demonstrated for a wide range of materials and concentrations. Coalescence is prevented by an energy barrier for a topological ring defect formation…
We develop a model for the thermodynamics and evaporation dynamics of aerosol droplets of a liquid such as water, surrounded by the gas. When the temperature and the chemical potential (or equivalently the humidity) are such that the vapour…
Colloidal model systems allow for a flexible tuning of particle sizes, particle spacings and mutual interactions at constant temperature. Colloidal suspensions typically crystallize as soon as the interactions get sufficiently strong and…
The ground state of chromonic liquid crystals, as revealed by a number of recent experiments, is quite different from that of ordinary nematic liquid crystals: it is twisted instead of uniform. The common explanation provided for this state…
Glass is everywhere. We use and are surrounded by glass objects which make tangible the reality of glass as a distinct state of matter. Yet, glass as we know it is usually obtained by cooling a liquid sufficiently rapidly below its melting…
Non-equilibrium phase coexistence is commonly observed in both biological and artificial systems, yet understanding it remains a significant challenge. Unlike equilibrium systems, where free energy provides a unifying framework, the absence…
In this paper we present a new thermodynamically consistent phase transition model describing the evolution of a liquid substance, e.g., water, in a rigid container $\Omega$ when we freeze the container. Since the density $\varrho_{2}$ of…
Liquids relax extremely slowly upon approaching the glass state. One explanation is that an entropy crisis, due to the rarefaction of available states, makes it increasingly arduous to reach equilibrium in that regime. Validating this…
Water is a ubiquitous liquid with unique physico-chemical properties, whose nature has shaped our planet and life as we know it. Water in restricted geometries has different properties than in bulk. Confinement can prevent low-temperature…
The kinetics of phase transition processes often governs the resulting material microstruc-ture. Using optical microscopy, we here investigate the formation and stabilization of a po-rous crystalline microstructure forming in low-salt…
In quenched disordered systems, the existence of ordering is generally believed to be only possible in the weak disorder regime (disregarding models of spin-glass type). In particular, sufficiently large random fields is expected to…
We show how deeply quenching a liquid to temperatures where it is linearly unstable and the crystal is the equilibrium phase often produces crystalline structures with defects and disorder. As the solid phase advances into the liquid phase,…
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…
One of water's unsolved puzzles is the question of what determines the lowest temperature to which it can be cooled before freezing to ice. The supercooled liquid has been probed experimentally to near the homogeneous nucleation temperature…
A liquid can exist under conditions of thermodynamic stability or metastability within boundaries defined by the liquid-gas spinodal and the glass transition line. The relationship between these boundaries has been investigated previously…
Liquids realize a highly complex state of matter in which strong competing kinetic and interaction effects come to life. As such, liquids are more challenging to understand than either gases or solids generally. In weakly interacting gases,…