Related papers: To make a glass - avoid the crystal
The key parameter controlling the glass transition of colloidal suspensions is $\varphi$, the fraction of the sample volume occupied by the particles. Unfortunately, changing $\varphi$ by varying an external parameter, \textit{e.g.}…
We study concentrated binary colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition as the volume fraction $\phi$ of particles is increased. We use confocal microscopy to directly observe particle motion within dense samples…
The mechanical properties of amorphous solids like metallic glasses can be dramatically changed by adding small concentrations (as low as 0.1\%) of foreign elements. The glass-forming-ability, the ductility, the yield stress and the elastic…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, with a realistic many-body embedded-atom potential, and a novel method to characterize local order, we study the structure of pure nickel during the rapid quench of the liquid and in the resulting…
Spin coating is an out-of-equilibrium technique for producing polymer films and colloidal crystals quickly and reproducibly. In this review, we present an overview of theoretical and experimental studies of the spin coating of colloidal…
The onset of structural arrest and glass formation in a concentrated suspension of silica nanoparticles in a water-lutidine binary mixture near its consolute point is studied by exploiting the near-critical fluid degrees of freedom to…
We study aging in a colloidal suspension consisting of micron-sized particles in a liquid. This system is made glassy by increasing the particle concentration. We observe samples composed of particles of two sizes, with a size ratio of…
We study dynamic heterogeneities in a model glass-former whose overlap with a reference configuration is constrained to a fixed value. The system phase-separates into regions of small and large overlap, so that dynamical correlations remain…
Amorphous and glassy materials are important for many advanced applications, from flexible solar cells to drug delivery systems. To this end, new glasses are in high demand, but precise chemical design of amorphous materials remains…
The effects of particle shape on the vibrational properties of colloidal glasses are studied experimentally. 'Ellipsoidal glasses' are created by stretching polystyrene spheres to different aspect ratios and then suspending the resulting…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
A simple monatomic system in two dimensions with a double-well interaction potential is investigated in a wide range of temperature by molecular dynamics simulation. The system is melted and equilibrated well above the melting temperature,…
We poorly understand the properties of amorphous systems at small length scales, where a continuous elastic description breaks down. This is apparent when one considers their vibrational and transport properties, or the way forces propagate…
We present a confocal-microscopy study of demixing and remixing in binary liquids containing colloidal particles. First, particle-stabilized emulsions have been fabricated by nucleation and growth of droplets upon cooling from the…
The process of homogeneous crystal nucleation has been considered in a model liquid, where the interparticle interaction is described by a short-range spherical oscillatory potential. Mechanisms of initiating structural ordering in the…
We construct a quantum mechanical model of perfectly isotropic amorphous solids as fuzzy crystals and establish an analytical theory of vibrations for glasses at low temperature. Our theoretical framework relies on the basic principle that…
In this article, we demonstrate a method for inducing reversible crystal-to-crystal transitions in binary mixtures of soft colloidal particles. Through a controlled decrease of salinity and increasingly dominating electrostatic…
Recent progress in approaches to determine the elastic constants of solids starting from the microscopic particle interactions is reviewed. On the theoretical side, density functional theory approaches are discussed and compared to more…
Computer modeling and simulations are performed to investigate capillary bridges spontaneously formed between closely packed colloidal particles in phase separating liquids. The simulations reveal a self-stabilization mechanism that…
We use computer simulations to study the microscopic dynamics of an athermal assembly of soft particles near the fluid-to-solid, jamming transition. Borrowing tools developed to study dynamic heterogeneity near glass transitions, we…