Related papers: Visualizing kinetic pathways of homogeneous nuclea…
The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods…
We review understanding of kinetics of fluid phase separation in various space dimensions. Morphological differences, percolating or disconnected, based on overall composition in a binary liquid or density in a vapor-liquid system, have…
Unlike atoms, colloidal particles are not identical, but can only be synthesised within a finite size tolerance. Colloids are therefore polydisperse, i.e. mixtures of infinitely many components with sizes drawn from a continuous…
Understanding the underlying mechanism of crystal nucleation during solidification is a fundamental aspect in the prediction and control of materials properties. Classical nucleation theory (CNT) assumes that homogeneous nucleation occurs…
Microstructural changes in solids, driven by energy flows, do not develop in a static continuous space, such as the space considered in conventional plasticity models. The applied forces create an evolving internal energy landscape, which…
We demonstrate that the phase transition from columnar-hexagonal liquid crystal to hexagonal-crystalline solid falls into an unusual universality class, which in three-dimensional allows for both discontinuous transitions as well as…
We present theory and simulation of simultaneous chemical demixing and phase ordering in a polymer-liquid crystal mixture in conditions where isotropic-isotropic phase separation is metastable with respect to isotropic-nematic phase…
Starting from an ideal crystalline state, we numerically study a nonequilibrium dynamical order- disorder transition promoted by the application of a periodic shearing protocol at low temperatures in model systems in two and three…
Using computer simulations, we identify the mechanisms causing aggregation and structural arrest of colloidal suspensions interacting with a short-ranged attraction at moderate and high densities. Two different non-ergodicity transitions…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions and emulsions are amorphous soft solids, widespread in technological and industrial applications and studied as model systems in physics and material sciences. They are easily fluidized by applying a…
We present an experiment on crystallization of packings of macroscopic granular spheres. This system is often considered to be a model for thermally driven atomic or colloidal systems. Cyclically shearing a packing of frictional spheres, we…
The statistical mechanics of phase transitions in dense systems of polydisperse particles presents distinctive challenges to computer simulation and analytical theory alike. The core difficulty, namely dealing correctly with particle size…
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…
We use numerical simulations to study the crystallization of monodisperse systems of hard aspherical particles. We find that particle shape and crystallizability can be easily related to each other when particles are characterized in terms…
We reconsider model II of [J. Chem. Phys. 1968, 49, 1778--1783], a two-dimensional lattice-gas system featuring a crystalline phase and two distinct fluid phases (liquid and vapor). In this system, a particle prevents other particles from…
Liquid crystals in two dimensions do not support long-ranged nematic order, but a quasi-nematic phase where the orientational correlations decay algebraically is possible. The transition from the isotropic to the quasi-nematic phase can be…
Understanding the mechanisms underlying crystal formation is crucial. For most systems, crystallization typically goes through a nucleation process that involves dynamics that happen at short time and length scales. Due to this, molecular…
Experiments and simulations are used to study the kinetics of crystal growth in a mixture of magnetic and nonmagnetic particles suspended in ferrofluid. The growth process is quantified using both a bond order parameter and a mean domain…
The theoretical description of the heterogeneous nucleation kinetics is presented. This description takes into account the perturbation of the vapor phase initiated by the growing droplets. The form of the density profile around the growing…
We have carried out molecular dynamics simulations of the crystallization of hard spheres modelling colloidal systems that are studied in conventional and space-based experiments. We use microscopic probes to investigate the effects of…