Related papers: Crystallization and arrest mechanisms of model col…
The phenomenon of solidification of a substance from its liquid phase is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance, and atomistic simulations can provide precious information towards its understanding and control. Unfortunately,…
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 study the behaviour of catalytically active droplets in multi-component conserved mixtures affected by noise. Working in the thin interface limit, we analytically determine the state diagram of the system, characterized by multiple…
The kinetics of phase transition processes often governs the resulting material microstruc-ture. Using optical microscopy, we here investigate the formation and stabilization of a po-rous crystalline microstructure forming in low-salt…
We study the appearance and properties of cluster crystals (solids in which the unit cell is occupied by a cluster of particles) in a two-dimensional system of self-propelled active Brownian particles with repulsive interactions.…
We theoretically show how two impurity defects in a crystalline structure can be entangled through coupling with the crystal. We demonstrate this with a harmonic chain of trapped ions in which two ions of a different species are embedded.…
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…
The results of a numerical investigation of fluidized beds of spherical particles in a narrow vertical cylindrical pipe, with particular attention to the spontaneous settling along the wall, are reported. Starting from a steady fluidized…
Using a phase field crystal model we study the structure and dynamics of a drop of colloidal suspension during evaporation of the solvent. We model an experimental system where contact line pinning of the drop on the substrate is…
We study concentrated colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition. Samples in the glassy state show aging, in that the motion of the colloidal particles slows as the sample ages from an initial state. We study the…
We study the steady state resulting from instabilities in crystals driven through a dissipative medium, for instance, a colloidal crystal which is steadily sedimenting through a viscous fluid. The problem involves two coupled fields, the…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
We use a hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm to simulate the shaking of spheres at different vibrational amplitudes, and find that spontaneous crystallisation occurs in specific dynamical regimes. Several crystallising transitions are typically…
When colloidal particles form a crystal phase on a spherical template, their packing is governed by the effective interaction between them and the elastic strain of bending the growing crystal. For example, if growth commences under…
The behavior of identical particles interacting through the harmonic-repulsive pair potential has been studied in 3D using molecular dynamics simulations at a number of different densities. We found that at many densities, as the…
We have performed particle-resolved direct numerical simulations of many heavy non-spherical particles settling under gravity in the dilute regime. The particles are oblate spheroids of aspect ratio 1.5 and density ratio 1.5. Two Galileo…
We report a detailed experimental study of the structure and dynamics of glassy states in hard spheres with short-range attraction. The system is a suspension of nearly-hard-sphere colloidal particles and non-adsorbing linear polymer which…
A crystal lattice, when confined to the surface of a cylinder, must have a periodic structure that is commensurate with the cylinder circumference. This constraint can frustrate the system, leading to oblique crystal lattices or to…
We consider stochastic rules of mass transport which lead to steady states that factorize over the links of a one-dimensional ring. Based on the knowledge of the steady states, we derive the onset of a phase transition from a liquid to a…
We show that colloidal molecular crystal states interacting with a periodic substrate, such as an optical trap array, and a rotating external field can undergo a rapid pattern switching in which the orientation of the crystal changes. In…