Related papers: Observation of a metastable intermediate during so…
First principles molecular dynamics simulations reveal a liquid-liquid phase transition in supercooled elemental silicon. Two phases coexist below $T_c\approx 1232K$. The low density phase is nearly tetra-coordinated, with a pseudogap at…
An intense femtosecond-laser excitation of a solid induces highly nonthermal conditions. In materials like silicon, laser-induced bond-softening leads to a highly incoherent ionic motion and eventually nonthermal melting. But is this…
Ultrafast stimuli can stabilize metastable states of matter inaccessible by equilibrium means. Establishing the spatiotemporal link between ultrafast excitation and metastability is crucial to understanding these phenomena. Here, we use…
The phase diagram of colloidal hard superballs, of which the shape interpolates between cubes and octahedra via spheres, is determined by free-energy calculations in Monte Carlo simulations. We discover not only a stable face-centered cubic…
The existence of a phase transition between two distinct liquid phases in single-component network-forming liquids (e.g., water, silica, silicon) has elicited considerable scientific interest. The challenge, both for experiments and…
Concurrent molecular dynamics simulations and ab initio calculations show that densification of silica under pressure follows a ubiquitous two-stage mechanism. First, anions form a close-packed sub-lattice, governed by the strong repulsion…
The coexistence of different ferroelectric phases enables the tunability of the macroscopic properties and extensive applications from piezoelectric transducers to nonvolatile memories. Here we develop a thermodynamic model to predict the…
The liquid-vapor transition is a classic example of a discontinuous (first-order) phase transition. Such transitions underlie many phenomena in cosmology, nuclear and particle physics, and condensed-matter physics. They give rise to…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are soft phase-changing solids that exhibit large reversible contractions upon heating, Goldstone-like soft modes and resultant microstructural instabilities. We heat a planar LCE slab to isotropic, clamp…
We report hybrid lattice Boltzmann (HLB) simulations of the hydrodynamics of an active nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between confining walls with various anchoring conditions. We confirm the existence of a transition between a passive…
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…
The present paper elucidates the physical mechanism that accounts for the principal/primary stages of the structuring process taking place upon irradiation of a conductive solid with multiple identical femtosecond laser pulses, based on the…
A Double Ising Spin model for uniaxially structurally modulated materials exhibits as a special feature phase transitions between phases with equal wave numbers but different pseudo spin configurations. The character of these `internal'…
Lithium zirconium chlorides (LZCs) present a promising class of cost-effective solid electrolyte for next-generation all-solid-state batteries. The unique crystal structure of LZCs plays a crucial role in facilitating lithium-ion mobility,…
Thanks to the remarkable developments of ultrafast science, one of today's challenges is to modify material state by controlling with a light pulse the coherent motions that connect two different phases. Here we show how strain waves,…
Phase transitions are omnipresent in modern condensed matter physics and its applications. In solids, phase transformations typically occur by nucleation and growth under non-equilibrium conditions. Under constant external conditions,…
A continuum model of crystalline solid equilibrium is presented in which the underlying periodic lattice structure is taken explicitly into account. This model also allows for both point and line defects in the bulk of the lattice and at…
Solid-solid collapse transition in open framework structures is ubiquitous in nature. The real difficulty in understanding detailed microscopic aspects of such transitions in molecular systems arises from the interplay between different…
The elasticity, dynamic properties, and superconductivity of $\alpha$, $\omega$, and $\beta$ Zr are investigated by using first-principles methods. Our calculated elastic constants, elastic moduli, and Debye temperatures of $\alpha$ and…
We have studied a simple effective model of charge ordered insulators. The tight binding Hamiltonian consists of the effective on-site interaction U and the intersite density-density interaction Wij (both: nearest-neighbor and…