Related papers: Solid phase properties and crystallization in simp…
We explore the crystallization in a colloidal monolayer on a structured template starting from a few-particle nucleus. The competition between the substrate structure and that of the growing crystal induces a new crystal growth scenario.…
Heterogeneous nucleation is a process wherein extrinsic impurities facilitate freezing by lowering nucleation barriers and constitutes the dominant mechanism for crystallization in most systems. Classical nucleation theory (\textsc{Cnt})…
We test the performance of a recently proposed fundamental measure density functional of aligned hard cylinders by calculating the phase diagram of a monodisperse fluid of these particles. We consider all possible liquid crystalline…
The crystal-melt interfaces of a binary hard-sphere fluid mixture in coexistence with a single-component hard-sphere crystal is investigated using molecular-dynamics simulation. In the system under study, the fluid phase consists of a…
We systematically study the relationship between equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase diagrams of a system of short-ranged attractive colloids. Using Monte Carlo and Brownian dynamics simulations we find a window of enhanced…
In numerous solution-processed thin films, a complex morphology resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) or from polycrystallization arises during the drying or subsequent processing steps. The morphology has a strong influence…
Colloidal model systems allow studying crystallization kinetics under fairly ideal conditions with rather well characterized pair interactions and minimized external influences. In complementary approaches therefore experiment, analytic…
A simple fluid, described by point-like particles interacting via the Lennard-Jones potential, is considered under confinement in a slit geometry between two walls at distance Lz apart for densities inside the vapor-liquid coexistence…
We determined bulk crystal nucleation rates in aqueous suspensions of charged spheres at low metastability. Experiments were performed in dependence on electrolyte concen-tration and for two different particle number densities. The…
I consider a generic coarse-grained model suitable for the study of bulk self-assembly of liquid crystal (LC) macromolecules. The cases include LC dendrimers, gold nanoparticles modified by polymer chains with terminating LC groups and…
The heterogeneous condensation of a Lennard-Jones vapor onto a nanoscale seed particle is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Measuring the nucleation rate and the height of the free energy barrier using the mean first passage…
The role of metastable liquid phases in vapor-crystal nucleation is studied using Density Functional Theory(DFT). The model gives a semi-quantitatively accurate description of both the vapor-liquid-solid phase diagram for both simple fluids…
Kinetics of crystal-growth is investigated along the solid-liquid coexistence line for the (100), (110) and (111) orientations of the Lennard-Jones and Weeks-Chandler-Andersen fcc crystal-liquid interface, using non-equilibrium molecular…
We investigate the local structural fluctuations of a model equilibrium fluid with an aim of better understanding the structural basis of locally heterogeneous dynamics identified in recent simulations and experimental studies of…
Soft-granular media, such as dense emulsions, foams or tissues, exhibit either fluid- or solid-like properties depending on the applied external stresses. Whereas bulk rheology of such materials has been thoroughly investigated, the…
We use an elastic model to explore faceting of solid-wall vesicles with elastic heterogeneities. We show that faceting occurs in regions where the vesicle wall is softer, such as areas of reduced wall thicknesses or concentrated in…
A simple theoretical approach is used to investigate active colloids at the free interface and near repulsive substrates. We employ dynamical density functional theory to determine the steady-state density profiles in an effective…
We investigate a phase-field-crystal model for homogeneous nucleation. Instead of solving the time evolution of a density field towards equilibrium we use a String Method to identify saddle points in phase space. The saddle points allow to…
Atomically thin 2-dimensional heterostructures are a promising, novel class of materials with groundbreaking properties. The possiblity of choosing the many constituent components and their proportions allows optimizing these materials to…
While in principle, finite temperature density functional theory (ftDFT) should be a powerful tool for the study of crystallization, in practice this has not so far been the case. Progress has been hampered by technical problems which have…