Related papers: The Nonequilibrium Crystallization Force
We consider the growth of a vicinal crystal surface in the presence of a step-edge barrier. For any value of the barrier strength, measured by the length l_es, nucleation of islands on terraces is always able to destroy asymptotically…
According to classical nucleation theory, a crystal grows from a small nucleus that already bears the symmetry of its end phase - but experiments with colloids now reveal that, from an amorphous precursor, crystallites with different…
Fluid convection during protein crystallization plays a significant role in determining crystal growth rate and crystal quality. Crystals grown in reduced flow strength gives better quality crystal. Hence, tuning the flow strength is very…
We speculate that glass-forming liquids may contain fairly large and well-defined crystallites. This is based on arguing that the slowly relaxing "frozen-in" stresses characterizing ultraviscous liquids increase the barrier for nucleation,…
Customarily, crystalline solids are defined to be {\em rigid} since they resist changes of shape determined by their boundaries. However, rigid solids cannot exist in the thermodynamic limit where boundaries become irrelevant. Particles in…
We report on the differences between colloidal systems left to evolve in the earth's gravitational field and the same systems for which a slow continuous rotation averaged out the effects of particle sedimentation on a distance scale small…
Starting from a general classical model of many interacting particles we present a well defined step by step procedure to derive the continuum-mechanics equations of nonlinear elasticity theory with fluctuations which describe the…
Crystal growth behavior of benzoic acid crystals on different surfaces was examined. The performed experiments documented the existence of very strong influence introduced by polar surfaces as glass, gelatin, and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) on…
The metastable vapor-liquid coexistence of short-range attractive fluids hinders the formation of crystal nuclei, which in turn makes difficult the progress of the system towards its vapor-solid ground state. In this letter we show that…
It is well-known that the liquid properties in a strongly confined system can be very different from their ordinary behaviors in an extended system, due to the competition between the thermal energy and the interaction energy. Here we show…
By molecular-dynamics simulations, we have studied the devitrification (or crystallization) of aged hard-sphere glasses. First, we find that the dynamics of the particles are intermittent: Quiescent periods, when the particles simply…
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…
Nucleation is considered to be the first step in dust and cloud formation in the atmospheres of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, exoplanets, and brown dwarfs. In these environments dust and cloud particles grow to macroscopic sizes when…
When colloidal particles form a crystal phase on a spherical template, their packing is governed by the effective interaction between them and the elastic strain of bending the growing crystal. For example, if growth commences under…
Morphological instability of the solid-liquid interface occuring in a crystal growing from an undercooled thin liquid being bounded on one side by a free surface and flowing down inclined plane is investigated by a linear stability analysis…
Introducing a model to study deposition and erosion of single particles at microscopic scale, we investigate the clogging and erosive processes in a pore. The particle diameter, concentration, and adhesive forces rule the way particles are…
Flow-stabilized solids are a class of fragile matter that forms when a dense suspension of colloids accumulates against a semi-permeable barrier, for flow rates above a critical value. In order to probe the effect of particle size on the…
Usually, we expect large particles to sediment faster than small of the same material. Contrary to this intuition, we report a dynamical competition between sedimentation and phase ordering which leads to smaller particles settling faster…
Most of crystalline materials exhibit a hysteresis on their deformation curve when mechanically loaded in alternating directions. This Bauschinger effect is the signature of mechanisms existing at the atomic scale and controlling the…
Analytical relations for the glass transition temperature, $T_g$, and the crystal melting temperature, $T_m$, are developed on the basis of nonaffine lattice dynamics. The proposed relations explain: (i) the seemingly universal factor of…