Related papers: Shape Driven Solid--Solid Transitions in Colloids
We investigate the driven states of a two-dimensional crystal whose ground state can be tuned through a square-triangular transition. The depinning of such a system from a quenched random background potential occurs via a complex sequence…
Using a coarse molecular-dynamics (CMD) approach with an appropriate choice of coarse variable (order parameter), we map the underlying effective free-energy landscape for the melting of a crystalline solid. Implementation of this approach…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Solid-solid collapse transition in open framework structures is ubiquitous in nature. The real difficulty in understanding detailed microscopic aspects of such transitions in molecular systems arises from the interplay between different…
Metastable phases may be spontaneously formed from other metastable phases through nucleation. Here we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of a metastable phase from an unstable equilibrium by spinodal decomposition, which leads to a…
Structurally disordered materials continue to pose fundamental questions, including that of how different disordered phases ("polyamorphs") can coexist and transform from one to another. As a widely studied case, amorphous silicon (a-Si)…
Positional ordering of a two-dimensional fluid of hard disks is examined in such narrow tubes where only the nearest-neighbor interactions take place. Using the exact transfer-matrix method the transverse and longitudinal pressure…
When a system undergoes a transition from a liquid to a solid phase, it passes through multiple intermediate structures before reaching the final state. However, our knowledge on the exact pathways of this process is limited, mainly due to…
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…
The melting transition of two-dimensional (2D) systems is a fundamental problem in condensed matter and statistical physics that has advanced significantly through the application of computational resources and algorithms. 2D systems…
The melting transitions of a colloidal lattice confined to a two-dimensional ($2D$) periodic substrate of square symmetry are studied using Monte Carlo simulations. When the strengths of interparticle and particle-substrate interactions are…
We study bridging transitions between spherically and cylindrically shaped particles (colloids) of radius $R$ separated by a distance $H$ that are dissolved in a bulk fluid (solvent). Using macroscopics, microscopic density functional…
By means of a comprehensive theoretical investigation, we show that external pressure can induce topological phase transitions in IV-VI semiconducting chalcogenides with rock-salt structure. These materials satisfy mirror symmetries that…
We use numerical simulation to examine the possibility of a reversible liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water and related systems. In particular, for two atomistic models of water, we have computed free energies as functions of…
The desire to exert active optical control over matter is a unifying theme across multiple scientific disciplines, as exemplified by all-optical magnetic switching, light-induced metastable or exotic phases of solids and the coherent…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
We study phase transitions and the nature of order in a class of classical generalized $O(N)$ nonlinear $\sigma$-models (NLS) constructed by minimally coupling pure NLS with additional degrees of freedom in the form of (i) Ising…
We investigate - with Monte Carlo computer simulations - the phase behaviour of dimeric colloidal molecules on periodic substrates with square symmetry. The molecules are formed in a two-dimensional suspension of like charged colloids…
The solid-solid coexistence of a polydisperse hard sphere system is studied by using the Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that for large enough polydispersity the solid-solid coexistence state is more stable than the single-phase…
The role of layer disorder is important in establishing the topological phases of MoTe${_2}$. A rich tapestry of atomic ordering influences the structural phase transitions (SPTs), but there is little understanding of the mechanistic…