Related papers: Competition between monomeric and dimeric crystals…
Pan, Vekilov and Lubchenko[\textit{J. Phys. Chem. B}, 2010, \textbf{114}, 7620] have proposed that dense stable protein clusters appearing in weak protein solutions above the solubility curve are composed of protein oligomers. The…
We review how phase-field models contributed to the understanding of various aspects of crystal nucleation including homogeneous and heterogeneous processes, and their role in microstructure evolution. We recall results obtained both by the…
Bifurcations in kinetic pathways decide the evolution of a system. An example is crystallization, in which the thermodynamically stable polymorph may not form due to kinetic hindrance. Here, we use confined self-assembly to investigate the…
We investigate the phase behavior of symmetric AB diblock copolymers confined into a thin film. The film boundaries are parallel, impenetrable and attract the A component of the diblock copolymer. Using a self-consistent field technique…
Nucleation plays a critical role in the birth of crystals and is associated with a vast array of phenomena such as protein crystallization and ice formation in clouds. Despite numerous experimental and theoretical studies, many aspects of…
We explore the ground-state properties of bosons with dipole-dipole interactions in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Remarkably, a crystallization process happens for strong dipolar interactions. Herein, we provide a detailed…
The growing interest for comparing protein internal dynamics owes much to the realization that protein function can be accompanied or assisted by structural fluctuations and conformational changes. Analogously to the case of functional…
We study a simplified model of monoclonal antibodies confined in a patchy random porous medium. Antibodies are represented as Y-shaped particles composed of seven tangential hard spheres with attractive patches on the terminal beads, while…
The intrinsic property of proteins to form structural motifs such as alpha-helices and beta-sheets leads to a complex phase behavior in which proteins can assemble into various types of aggregates including crystals, liquidlike phases of…
Nucleation in systems with a metastable liquid-gas critical point is the prototypical example of a two-step nucleation process, in which the appearance of the critical nucleus is preceded by the formation of a liquid-like density…
An increasing variety of crystal structures has been observed in soft condensed matter over the past two decades, surpassing most expectations for the diversity of arrangements accessible through classical driving forces. Here, we survey…
In patchy particle systems where there is competition between the self-assembly of finite clusters and liquid-vapour phase separation, reentrant phase behaviour is observed, with the system passing from a monomeric vapour phase to a region…
The growth of crystals confined in porous or cellular materials is ubiquitous in Nature and industry. Confinement affects the formation of biominerals in living organisms, of minerals in the Earth's crust and of salt crystals damaging…
Based upon kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of crystallization in a simple polymer model we present a new picture of the mechanism by which the thickness of lamellar polymer crystals is constrained to a value close to the minimum…
The self-assembly of binary nanoparticle superlattices from colloidal mixtures is a promising method for the fabrication of complex colloidal co-crystal structures. However, binary mixtures often form amorphous or metastable phases instead…
Despite two decades of studies, the formation of metallic glasses, very promising systems for industrial applications, still remains mostly unexplained. This lack of knowledge hinders the search for new systems, still performed with…
Proteins are aminoacid chains that diffusively fold or unfold depending on the thermal and chemical environmental conditions. While sophisticated models account for detailed aspects of real proteins, finding traits that unify protein…
Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…
We develop methods for investigating protein drift-diffusion dynamics in heterogeneous cell membranes and the roles played by geometry, diffusion, chemical kinetics, and phase separation. Our hybrid stochastic numerical methods combine…
Dense packing of particles has provided important models to study the structure of matter in various systems such as liquid, glassy and crystalline phase, etc. The simplest sphere packing models are able to represent and capture salient…