Related papers: A classical nucleation theory description of activ…
By analytically solving some simple models of phase-ordering kinetics, we suggest a mechanism for the onset of non-equilibrium behaviour in colloid-polymer mixtures. These mixtures can function as models of atomic systems; their physics…
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…
Mixtures of active and passive particles are predicted to exhibit a variety of nonequilibrium phases. Here we report a dynamic clustering phase in mixtures of colloids and motile bacteria. We show that colloidal clustering results from a…
Active colloids constitute a novel class of materials composed of colloidal-scale particles locally converting chemical energy into motility, mimicking micro-organisms. Evolving far from equilibrium, these systems display structural…
Macroscopic theories of nucleation such as classical nucleation theory envision that clusters of the bulk stable phase form inside the bulk metastable phase. Molecular dynamics simulations are often used to elucidate nucleation mechanisms,…
We study the conditions under which and how an imposed cluster of fixed colloidal particles at prescribed positions triggers crystal nucleation from a metastable colloidal fluid. Dynamical density functional theory of freezing and Brownian…
The dynamical arrest of attractive colloidal particles into out-of-equilibrium structures, known as gelation, is central to biophysics, materials science, nanotechnology, and food and cosmetic applications, but a complete understanding is…
In equilibrium, the collective behaviour of particles interacting via steep, short-ranged potentials is well captured by the virial expansion of the free energy at low density. Here, we extend this approach beyond equilibrium to the case of…
Systems with long-range interactions when quenced into a metastable state near the pseudo-spinodal exhibit nucleation processes that are quite different from the classical nucleation seen near the coexistence curve. In systems with…
We theoretically study mixtures of chemically-interacting particles, which produce or consume a chemical to which they are attracted or repelled, in the most general case of many coexisting species. We find a new class of active phase…
Self-propulsion allows living systems to display unusual collective behavior. Unlike passive systems in thermal equilibrium, active matter systems are not constrained by conventional thermodynamic laws. A question arises however as to what…
We present an experimental study on the collective behavior of macroscopic self-propelled particles that are externally excited by light. This property allows testing the system response to the excitation intensity in a very versatile…
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.…
At low temperatures ultrasoft particle systems develop interesting phases via the self-assembly of particle clusters. In this study we develop a general zero-temperature analysis fully characterizing the ground state of such models in two…
By means of classical density functional theory and its dynamical extension, we consider a colloidal fluid with spherically-symmetric competing interactions, which are well known to exhibit a rich bulk phase behavior. This includes complex…
We introduce a simple model of active transport for an ensemble of particles driven by an external shear flow. Active refers to the fact that the flow of the particles is modified by the distribution of particles itself. The model consists…
Recent studies aimed at investigating artificial analogs of bacterial colonies have shown that low-density suspensions of self-propelled particles confined in two dimensions can assemble into finite aggregates that merge and split, but have…
During the processes of nucleation and growth of a precipitate cluster from a supersaturated solution, the diffusion flux between the cluster and the solution changes the solute concentration near the cluster-solution interface from its…
We study the dynamics of quasi-two-dimensional concentrated suspensions of colloidal particles in active gels by computer simulations. Remarkably, we find that activity induces a dynamic clustering of colloids even in the absence of any…
Using Brownian dynamics computer simulations we show that a two-dimensional suspension of self-propelled ("active") colloidal particles crystallizes at sufficiently high densities. Compared to the equilibrium freezing of passive particles…