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We investigate the formation of cluster crystals with multiply occupied lattice sites on a spherical surface in systems of ultra-soft particles interacting via repulsive, bounded pair potentials. Not all interactions of this kind lead to…
Despite their technological relevance, a full microscopic understanding of glasses is still lacking. This applies even more to their surfaces whose properties largely differ from that of the bulk material. Here, we experimentally…
We investigate the effects of the reversal of the gravitational field onto a sedimented and partially crystallised suspension of nearly-hard sphere colloids. We analyse the structural changes that take place during the melting of the…
Simulations of the structure and dynamics of fluid films confined to a thickness of a few molecular diameters are described. Confining walls introduce layering and in-plane order in the adjacent fluid. The latter is essential to transfer of…
The crystalline structure of minerals due to the highly ordered assembly of its constituent atoms, ions or molecules confers a considerable hardness and brittleness to the materials. As a result, they are generally subject to fracture. Here…
Alkali halide (100) surfaces are anomalously poorly wetted by their own melt at the triple point. We carried out simulations for NaCl(100) within a simple (BMHFT) model potential. Calculations of the solid-vapor, solid-liquid and…
This paper studies the lubricating properties of graphene on randomly rough Au surfaces in sliding nanofriction using molecular dynamics. It is shown that the friction and the consequent heat dissipation decrease more than an order of…
The motion of a block slipping on a surface is a well studied problem for flat and circular surfaces, but the necessary conditions for the block to leave (or not) the surface deserve a detailed treatment. In this article, using basic…
The friction of a stationary moving skate on smooth ice is investigated, in particular in relation to the formation of a thin layer of water between skate and ice. It is found that the combination of ploughing and sliding gives a friction…
We report an experimental study of the drying-induced peeling of a bilayer, consisting of an elastomeric disk coated with a suspension of nanoparticles. We show that although capillary forces associated with the scale of the droplet can not…
We experimentally study the surface roughness and the lateral friction force in single-layer MoS2 crystals deposited on different substrates: SiO2, mica and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). Roughness and sliding friction measurements are…
Roughening the surface of spherical colloids can drastically change their translational and rotational dynamics in dense suspensions. Using 3D confocal microscopy, we show that roughness not only lowers the concentration of the…
The rotational Brownian motion of colloidal spheres in dense suspensions reflects local hydrodynamics and friction, both key to non-linear rheological phenomena such as shear-thickening and jamming, and transport in crowded environments,…
We report microscale friction experiments for diamond/metal and diamond/silica contacts under gigapascal contact pressures. Using a new nanoprobe technique which has sufficient dynamic range of force and stiffness, we demonstrate the…
Nanocrystalline metals contain a large fraction of high-energy grain boundaries, which may be considered as glassy phases. Consequently, with decreasing grain size, a crossover in the deformation behaviour of nanocrystals to that of…
Using an adiabatic approximation method, which searches for Tomlinson model-like instabilities for a simple but still realistic model for two crystalline surfaces in the extremely light contact limit, with mobile molecules present at the…
A thin circular elastic sheet floating on a drop-like liquid substrate is deformed due to incompatibility between the curved substrate and the planar sheet. We adopt a variational viewpoint by minimizing the non-convex membrane energy…
We report the fabrication of a nanoelectromechanical system consisting of a plate rotating around a multiwalled nanotube bearing. The motion is possible thanks to the low intershell friction. Indeed, the nanotube has been engineered so that…
The influence of the external pressure and surface energy on the wetting transition at nanotextured interfaces is studied using molecular dynamics and continuum simulations. The surface roughness of the composite interface is introduced via…
The resistance against rolling of a rigid cylinder on a flat viscous surface is investigated. We found that the rolling-friction coefficient reveals strongly non-linear dependence on the cylinder's velocity. For low velocity the…