Related papers: Surface melting and crystallisation driven by sedi…

We investigate the fragmentation process of solid materials with crystalline and amorphous phases using the discrete element method. Damage initiates inside spherical samples above the contact zone in a region where the circumferential…

Disordered solids, straddling the solid-fluid boundary, lack a comprehensive continuum mechanical description. They exhibit a complex microstructure wherein multiple meta-stable states exist. Deforming disordered solids induces particles…

Elucidating the interplay of stress and geometry is a fundamental scientific question arising in multiple fields. In this work, we investigate the geometric frustration of crystalline caps confined on the sphere in both elastic and plastic…

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…

The primary distinction between solid and liquid phases is mechanical rigidity, with liquids having a disordered atomic structure that allows flow. While melting is a common phase transition, its microscopic mechanisms still remain unclear.…

We studied the phase behavior of charged and sterically stabilized colloids using confocal microscopy in a less polar solvent (dielectric constant 5.4). Upon increasing the colloid volume fraction we found a transition from a fluid to a…

Usually, we expect large particles to sediment faster than small of the same material. Contrary to this intuition, we report a dynamical competition between sedimentation and phase ordering which leads to smaller particles settling faster…

Understanding the interplay between ordered structures and substrate curvature is an interesting problem with versatile applications, including functionalization of charged supramolecular surfaces and modern microfluidic technologies. In…

We investigate numerically and semi-analytically the collapse of low-mass, rotating prestellar cores. Initially, the cores are in approximate equilibrium with low rotation (the initial ratio of thermal to gravitational energy is $\alpha_0…

We consider the motion of a fluid-immersed negatively buoyant particle in the vicinity of a thin compressible elastic wall, a situation that arises in a variety of technological and natural settings. We use scaling arguments to establish…

Contacts between particles in dense, sheared suspensions are believed to underpin much of their rheology. Roughness and adhesion are known to constrain the relative motion of particles, and thus globally affect the shear response, but an…

We study the dynamics of small fluctuations about the uniform state of a crystal moving through a dissipative medium, e.g. a sedimenting colloidal crystal or a moving flux lattice, using a set of continuum equations for the displacement…

Dense suspensions of particles are relevant to many applications and are a key platform for developing a fundamental physics of out-of-equilibrium systems. They present challenging flow properties, apparently turning from liquid to solid…

We propose the use of topographic modulation of surfaces to select and localize particles in nematic colloids. By considering convex and concave deformations of one of the confining surfaces we show that the colloid-flat surface repulsion…

Crystallization pressure drives deformation and damage in monuments, buildings and the Earth's crust. Even though the phenomenon has been known for 170 years there is no agreement between theoretical calculations of the maximum attainable…

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…

Hierarchical self-assembly consisting of local associations of simple building-blocks for the formation of complex structures widely exists in nature, while the essential role of local assembly remains unknown. In this work, by using…

We investigate the equilibrium properties of a colloidal solution in contact with a soft interface. As a result of symmetry breaking, surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. In this Letter, particular…

We investigated the equilibrium properties of a one-dimensional system of classical particles which interact in pairs through a bounded repulsive potential with a Gaussian shape. Notwithstanding the absence of a proper fluid-solid phase…

We present a dynamic model to study ordering of particles on arbitrary curved surfaces. Thereby the particles are represented as maxima in a density field and a surface partial differential equation for the density field is solved to the…