Related papers: Freezing on a Sphere
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…
We find an order-disorder transition from crystals to disordered crystals for static packings of frictionless spheres. While the geometric indicators are mostly blind to the transition, disordered crystals already exhibit properties apart…
Topology and geometry of a sphere create constraints for particles that lie on its surface which they otherwise do not experience in Euclidean space. Notably, the number of particles and the size of the system can be varied separately,…
The freezing of colloidal suspensions is encountered in many natural and engineering processes. It can be harnessed through a process known as ice templating, to produce porous materials and composites exhibiting unique functional…
The effect of polydispersity on the freezing transition of hard spheres is examined within a moment description. At low polydispersities a single fluid-to-crystal transition is recovered. With increasing polydispersity we find a density…
We use a hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm to simulate the shaking of spheres at different vibrational amplitudes, and find that spontaneous crystallisation occurs in specific dynamical regimes. Several crystallising transitions are typically…
A spacetime crystal is a phase of matter that spontaneously develops periodic order in both space and time. Spacetime crystals have been experimentally observed in microscopic quantum many-body systems and, very recently, in a mesoscopic…
We investigate the assembly of the dipole-like patchy particles confined to a spherical surface by Brownian dynamics simulations. The surface property of the spherical particle is described by the spherical harmonic $Y_{10}$, and the…
In supercooled liquids, vitrification generally suppresses crystallization. Yet some glasses can still crystallize despite the arrest of diffusive motion. This ill-understood process may limit the stability of glasses, but its microscopic…
Recent advances in classical density functional theory are combined with stochastic process theory and rare event techniques to formulate a theoretical description of nucleation, including crystallization, that can predict nonclassical…
A crystal lattice, when confined to the surface of a cylinder, must have a periodic structure that is commensurate with the cylinder circumference. This constraint can frustrate the system, leading to oblique crystal lattices or to…
Point defects are ubiquitous in two dimensional crystals and play a fundamental role in determining their mechanical and thermodynamical properties. When crystals are formed on a curved background, finite length grain boundaries (scars) are…
On microscopic scales, the crystallinity of flexible tethered or cross linked membranes determines their mechanical response. We show that by controlling the type, number and distribution of defects on a spherical elastic shell, it is…
Fractons are particles that cannot move in one or more directions without paying energy proportional to their displacement. Here, we introduce the concept of symmetry enforced fractonicity, in which particles are fractons in the presence of…
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…
Minimal energy shapes of closed, elastic shells with twelve pentagonal disclinations introduced in otherwise hexagonally coordinated crystalline lattice are studied. The geometry and the total energy of shells are studied as a function of…
We report Monte Carlo studies of a two-dimensional soft colloidal crystal confined in a strip geometry by parallel walls. The wall-particle interaction has corrugations along the length of the strip. Compressing the crystal by decreasing…
Freestanding tubular crystals offer a general description of crystalline order on deformable surfaces with cylindrical topology, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, microtubules, and recently reported colloidal assemblies. These systems…
Monodisperse spherical colloidal particles confined within emulsion droplets can crystallize into icosahedral clusters. Experimentally it was observed that a few large colloidal particles added as defects preferentially migrate to the…
When submitted to large stresses at high temperature, usual crystals may irreversibly deform. This phenomenon is known as plasticity and it is due to the motion of crystal defects such as dislocations. We have discovered that, in the…