Related papers: Non-classical pathways of crystallization in collo…
We show using numerical simulations that a rich variety of novel colloidal crystalline states are realized on square and triangular two dimensional periodic substrates which can be experimentally created using crossed laser arrays. When…
Coarse-graining atomic displacements in a solid produces both local affine strains and "non-affine" fluctuations. Here we study the equilibrium dynamics of these coarse grained quantities to obtain space-time dependent correlation…
Classical nucleation theory is used to estimate the free-energy barrier to nucleation of the solid phase of particles interacting via a potential which has a short-ranged attraction. Due to the high interfacial tension between the fluid and…
The thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallization of nanoparticles, as opposed to bulk phases, may be influenced by surface and size effects. We investigate the importance of such factors in the crystallization process of gold, silver, and…
Colloidal gels are widely applied in industry due to their rheological character -- no flow takes place below the yield stress. Such property enables gels to maintain uniform distribution in practical formulations; otherwise, solid…
Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that crystallization and glass-like solidification are useful analogies for understanding cell ordering in confluent biological tissues. It remains unexplored how cellular ordering…
We generalize, and then use, a recently introduced formalism to study thermal fluctuations of atomic displacements in several two and three dimensional crystals. We study both close packed as well as open crystals with multi atom bases.…
We review theoretical explanation of mechanisms of control of uniformity in growth of nanosize particles and colloids. The nanoparticles are synthesized as nanocrystals, by burst nucleation from solution. The colloids are self-assembled by…
Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…
We investigate path-wise observables in experiments on driven colloids in a periodic light field to dissect selected intricate transport features, kinetics, and transition-path time statistics out of thermodynamic equilibrium. These…
This study is devoted to the long-term behavior of nucleation, growth and fragmentation equations, modeling the spontaneous formation and kinetics of large polymers in a spatially homogeneous and closed environment. Such models are, for…
The internal dynamics of strongly interacting systems and that of biomolecules such as proteins display several important analogies, despite the huge difference in their characteristic energy and length scales. For example, in all such…
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…
A full understanding of polycrystalline materials requires studying the process of nucleation, a thermally activated phase transition that typically occurs at atomistic scales. The numerical modeling of this process is problematic for…
Nucleation, the pivotal first step of crystallization, governs essential characteristics of crystallization products, including size distribution, morphology, and polymorphism. While understanding this process is paramount to the design of…
Colloids are abundant in nature, science and technology, with examples ranging from milk to quantum dots and the "colloidal atom" paradigm. Similarly, liquid crystal ordering is important in contexts ranging from biological membranes to…
Placing colloidal particles in predesigned sites represents a major challenge of the current state-of-the-art colloidal science. Nematic liquid crystals with spatially varying director patterns represent a promising approach to achieve a…
We present a novel picture of a non isothermal solidification process starting from a molecular level, where the microscopic origin of the basic mechanisms and of the instabilities characterizing the approach to equilibrium is rendered more…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…
We investigate the dynamical pathways of a geometric phase transition in a two-dimensional active lattice gas undergoing motility-induced phase separation. The transition is between metastable morphologies of the liquid cluster: a…