Related papers: A New Phenomenon: Sub-Tg, Solid-State, Plasticity-…
The adhesion between a polymer melt and substrate is studied in the presence of chemically attached chains on the substrate surface. Extensive molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to study the effect of temperature, tethered…
Quantum degenerate cold-atom gases provide a remarkable opportunity to study strongly interacting systems. Recent experimental progress in producing ultracold polar molecules with a net electric dipole moment opens up new possibilities to…
The dynamic and static properties of a supercooled (non-entangled) polymer melt are investigated via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The system is confined between two completely smooth and purely repulsive walls. The wall-to-wall…
The glass transition temperature (Tg) is the temperature, after which the supercooled liquid undergoes a dynamical arrest. Usually, the glass network modifiers (e.g., Na2O) affect the behavior of Tg. However, in aluminosilicate glasses, the…
Thin film dynamics and associated instability mechanisms have triggered a wide range of scientific innovations, as attributed to their abilities of creating fascinating patterns over small scales. Here, we demonstrate a new thin film…
The dynamical response of a tethered semiflexible polymer with self-attractive interactions and subjected to an external force field is numerically investigated by varying stiffness and self-interaction strength. The chain is confined in…
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of an idealized polymer melt surrounding a nanoscopic filler particle to probe the effects of a filler on the local melt structure and dynamics. We show that the glass transition temperature $T_g$…
The emergence of the solid state in glass-forming materials upon cooling is accompanied by changes in both thermodynamic and viscoelastic properties and by a precipitous drop in fluidity. Here, we investigate changes in basic elastic…
We present the results of analytic calculations and numerical simulations of the behaviour of a new class of chain molecules which we call thick polymers. The concept of the thickness of such a polymer, viewed as a tube, is encapsulated by…
The origin of the dramatic slowdown of dynamics near the glass transition temperature (Tg) remains a long-standing fundamental and unresolved issue in soft condensed matter. While single-molecule (SM) experiments using fluorescent probes…
Nanoscale polymeric thin films are widely used in diverse applications such as energy devices, flexible electronics and biosensors, where a satisfactory mechanical performance is of vital importance to realize their full functionality. It…
It was stated earlier that in the samples of PVC films plasticized by a new type of plasticizer (modifier-A) abnormal transitions are possible from the state of low electrical conductivity to the state of high conductivity. For the first…
A phenomenon recently coined as ``overaging'' implies a slowdown in the collective (slow) relaxation modes of a glass when a transient shear strain is imposed. We are able to reproduce this behavior in simulations of a supercooled polymer…
Dewetting of thin polystyrene films deposited onto silicone wafers at temperatures close to the glass transition exhibits unusual dynamics and front morphologies. Here, we present a new theoretical approach of these phenomena taking into…
Ceramics are typically brittle at ambient conditions due to their covalent or ionic bonding and limited dislocation activities. While plasticity, and occasionally superplasticity, can be achieved in ceramics at high temperatures through…
Consistently atomistic understanding of the mechanism behind the intriguing behavior of low-dimensional systems including monatomic chains, hollow tubes, surface skins, nanocavities, nanowires, and nanograins has long been a high challenge.…
In this work, we present a new model for the interpretation of the local dynamic behavior and the mechanical reinforcement mechanism in polymer nanocomposites. The temperature dependence of the dynamics in the glassy region is described by…
Applying a force to certain supramolecular bonds may initially stabilize them, manifested by a lower dissociation rate. We show that this behavior, known as catch bonding and by now broadly reported in numerous biophysics bonds, is…
The onset of irreversible deformation in low-temperature amorphous solids is due to the accumulation of elementary events, consisting of spacially and temporally localized atomic rearrangements involving only a few tens of atoms. Recently,…
We study how solidification of model freely rotating polymers under athermal quasistatic compression varies with their bond angle $\theta_0$. All systems undergo two discrete, first-order-like transitions: entanglement at $\phi =…