Related papers: Liquids more stable than crystals
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…
Attractive colloidal particles can form a disordered elastic solid or gel when quenched into a two-phase region, if the volume fraction is sufficiently large. When the interactions are comparable to thermal energies the stress-bearing…
Glass-to-glass and liquid-to-liquid phase transitions were observed many years ago in bulk and confined water with or without applied pressure. It is shown that they result from the competition of two-liquid phases separated by an enthalpy…
Liquid crystals are phases of matter intermediate between crystals and liquids. Whereas classical liquid crystals have been known for a long time and are used in electro-optical displays, much less is known about their quantum counterparts.…
The liquid state is one of the fundamental and essential states of matter, but its physical understanding is far behind the other states, such as the gas and solid states, due to the difficulties associated with the high density causing…
Super-cooled liquids are characterized by their fragility: the slowing down of the dynamics under cooling is more sudden and the jump of specific heat at the glass transition is generally larger in fragile liquids than in strong ones.…
Using Brownian dynamics computer simulations we show that a two-dimensional suspension of self-propelled ("active") colloidal particles crystallizes at sufficiently high densities. Compared to the equilibrium freezing of passive particles…
We present here a numerical study of a lattice model of a chiral liquid. The low symmetry of the favoured local structure depresses the freezing point to reveal an exotic liquid-liquid transition characterised by the appearance of an…
Strongly interacting, dynamically disordered and with no small parameter, liquids took a theoretical status between gases and solids. We review different approaches to liquids and propose that liquids do not need classifying in terms of…
Ultrastable glasses have risen to prominence due to their potentially useful material properties and the tantalizing possibility of a general method of preparation via vapor deposition. Despite the importance of this novel class of…
In the absence of disorder, electrons can display glassy behavior through supercooling the liquid state, avoiding the solidification into a charge ordered state. Such supercooled electron liquids are experimentally found in organic…
We report a numerical study of the rate of crystal nucleation in a binary suspension of oppositely charged colloids. Two different crystal structures compete in the thermodynamic conditions under study. We find that the crystal phase that…
Exploring structural order in disordered systems including liquids and glasses is an intriguing but challenging issue in condensed matter physics. Here we construct a new parameter based on the angular distribution function of particles and…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions are a well-tested model system which has a glass transition. Colloids are suspensions of small solid particles in a liquid, and exhibit glassy behavior when the particle concentration is high; the…
The formation of clusters in supercooled liquids close to the glass transition temperature is described by rate equations in which the coefficients are determined on physical grounds rather than in terms of thermodynamic quantities such as…
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…
We review the inherent structure thermodynamical formalism and the formulation of an equation of state for liquids in equilibrium based on the (volume) derivatives of the statistical properties of the potential energy surface. We also show…
We derive a phase diagram for amorphous solids and liquid supercooled water and explain why the amorphous solids of water exist in several different forms. Application of large-deviation theory allows us to prepare such phases in computer…
We discuss the microscopic mechanisms by which low-temperature amorphous states, such as ultrastable glasses, transform into equilibrium fluids, after a sudden temperature increase. Experiments suggest that this process is similar to the…
Water is necessary both for the evolution of life and its continuance. It possesses particular properties that cannot be found in other materials and that are required for life-giving processes. These properties are brought about by the…