Related papers: Nucleation in Confinement Generates Long-range Rep…
The formation of (bio)molecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation in cells has received increasing attention, as these coacervates play important functional and regulatory roles within biological systems. However, the majority…
Experimental investigations of surface forces generally involve two solid bodies of simple and well-defined geometry interacting across a medium. Direct measurement of their surface interaction can be interpreted to reveal fundamental…
Understanding the force between charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution is a classic problem in soft matter and liquid-state theory. Recent experiments showed that the force decays exponentially but the characteristic decay…
Nanoconfinement effects on water dissociation and reactivity remain controversial, despite their importance to understand the aqueous chemistry at interfaces, pores, or aerosols. The pKw in confined environments has been assessed from…
Confinement can significantly alter fluid properties, offering potential for specific technological applications. However, achieving precise control over the structural complexity of confined fluids and soft matter remains challenging, as…
We apply a phenomenological theory of polar liquids to calculate the interaction energy between two plane surfaces at nm-distances. We show that depending on the properties of the surface-liquid interfaces, the interacting surfaces induce…
Previous experimental reports of long-range interactions in ionic liquids (ILs) stand in contradiction with theoretical predictions and numerical simulations. To provide insights into the literature discrepancies regarding the experimental…
We analyze thermodynamics of water samples confined in nanopores and prove that although the freezing temperature can be dramatically lower, the suppression of the ice nucleation leading to the freezing temperature depression is a truly…
We analyze the displacements of the particles of a glass-forming molecular liquid perpendicular to a confining solid surface, using extensive molecular dynamics simulations with atomistic models. In the vicinity of an attractive surface,…
We analyze a dilute suspension of active particles confined between walls and subjected to fields that can modulate particle speed as well as orientation. Generally, the particle distribution is different in the bulk compared to near the…
Melting is typically viewed as a bulk first-order phase transition that proceeds once nucleation barriers are overcome. Here we demonstrate an interfacially arrested melting regime in molecularly thin crystalline films, where large liquid…
We report here a molecular dynamics simulation study on water and aqueous LiCl solutions confined in 1.6 nm cylindrical pores of silica to investigate a dynamical cross-over, observed earlier experimentally, wherein LiCl slows down confined…
The surface freezing and surface melting transitions exhibited by a model two-dimensional soft matter system is studied. The behaviour when confined within a wedge is also considered. The system consists of particles interacting via a soft…
The formation of ice affects many aspects of our everyday life as well as technologies such as cryotherapy and cryopreservation. Foreign substances almost always aid water freezing through heterogeneous ice nucleation, but the molecular…
The forces exerted by growing crystals on the surrounding materials play a major role in many geological processes, from diagenetic replacement to rock weathering and uplifting of rocks and soils. Although crystallization is a…
Aqueous suspensions of microspheres were infused around gels of varying composition. The solutes were excluded from zones on the order of 100 micrometers from the gel surface. We present evidence that this finding is not an artifact, and…
We report surface hardening or crust formation, unlike caking, during drying when a confined porous medium was heated from above using IR radiation. These crusts have higher strength than their closest counterparts such as sandcastles and…
Many swimming bacteria naturally inhabit confined environments, yet how confinement influences their swimming behaviors remains unclear. Here, we combine experiments, continuum modeling and particle-based simulations to investigate…
Systems with long-range interactions when quenced into a metastable state near the pseudo-spinodal exhibit nucleation processes that are quite different from the classical nucleation seen near the coexistence curve. In systems with…
Confinement can modify the dynamics, the thermodynamics and the structural properties of liquid water, the prototypical anomalous liquid. By considering a general anomalous liquid, suitable for globular proteins, colloids or liquid metals,…