Related papers: Orientational Order in Disordered Colloidal Suspen…
The glass problem is notoriously hard and controversial. Even at the mean-field level, little is agreed about how a fluid turns sluggish while exhibiting but unremarkable structural changes. It is clear, however, that the process involves…
We derive a microscopic equation of motion for the dynamical orientational correlators of molecular crystals. Our approach is based upon mode coupling theory. Compared to liquids we find four main differences: (i) the memory kernel contains…
Metallic glasses have so far attracted considerable attention for their applications as bulk materials. However, new physics and applications often emerge by dimensional reduction from three dimension (3D) to two dimension (2D). Here, we…
Understanding and controlling physical aging, i.e. the spontaneous temporal evolution of out-of-equilibrium systems, represents one of the greatest tasks in material science. Recent studies have revealed the existence of a complex atomic…
Spontaneous self-assembly of hard convex polyhedra are known to form orientationally disordered crystalline phases, where particle orientations do not follow the same pattern as the positional arrangement of the crystal. A distinct type of…
By the adoption of a quaternion orientational order parameter to describe solidification, the topological origins of the thermal transport properties of crystalline and non-crystalline solid states are considered herein. Global…
Most of the liquid-state theories, including glass-transition theories, are constructed on the basis of two-body density correlations. However, we have recently shown that many-body correlations, in particular bond orientational…
We observed a two-step glass transition in monolayers of colloidal ellipsoids by video microscopy. The glass transition in the rotational degree of freedom was at a lower density than that in the translational degree of freedom. Between the…
We describe results of measurements of the orientational motion of glass microrods in a microchannel flow, following the orientational motion of particles with different shapes. We determine how the orientational dynamics depends on the…
An exact solution of a Landau model of an order-disorder transition with activated critical dynamics is presented. The model describes a funnel-shaped topography of the order parameter space in which the number of energy lowering…
Whether or not there is growing static order accompanying the dynamical heterogeneity and increasing relaxation times seen in glassy systems is a matter of dispute. An obstacle to resolving this issue is that the order is expected to be…
Topological defects are typically quantified relative to ordered backgrounds. The importance of these defects to the understanding of physical phenomena including diverse equilibrium melting transitions from low temperature ordered to…
We investigate experimentally the relationship between local structure and dynamical arrest in a quasi-2d colloidal model system which approximates hard discs. We introduce polydispersity to the system to suppress crystallisation. Upon…
The concept of the order parameter is extremely useful in physics. Here, I discuss extensions of this concept to cases when the order parameter is no longer a constant but fluctuates or oscillates in space and time. This allows one to…
We analytically and numerically characterize the structure of hard-sphere fluids in order to review various geometrical frustration scenarios of the glass transition. We find generalized polytetrahedral order to be correlated with…
We examine here various aspects of the statics and dynamics of disordered elastic systems such as manifolds and periodic systems. Although these objects look very similar and indeed share some underlying physics, periodic systems constitute…
We use confocal microscopy to study the motions of particles in concentrated colloidal systems. Near the glass transition, diffusive motion is inhibited, as particles spend time trapped in transient ``cages'' formed by neighboring…
One of the most distinctive hallmarks of many-body systems far from equilibrium is the spontaneous emergence of order under conditions where disorder would be plausibly expected. Here, we report on the self-transition between ordered and…
We propose that extended orientational correlations can appear at the surface of supercooled heavy noble liquid metals, due to the same compressive forces that cause reconstruction of their crystal surfaces. Simulations for liquid Au show a…
We characterize the order-disorder transition in a model lipid bilayer using molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the ordered phase is hexatic. In particular, in-plane structures possess a finite concentration of 5-7 disclination…