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Isomerization, i.e. the rearrangement between distinct molecular configurations, is a fundamental process in chemistry. Here we demonstrate that two-dimensional Coulomb crystals can emulate molecular isomerization and be used to…

Atomic Physics · Physics 2025-08-11 Naoto Mizukami , Gabriele Gatta , Lucia Duca , Carlo Sias

The kinetics of phase transition processes often governs the resulting material microstruc-ture. Using optical microscopy, we here investigate the formation and stabilization of a po-rous crystalline microstructure forming in low-salt…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-06-23 Nina Lorenz , Christopher Wittenberg , Thomas Palberg

The surface curvature of membranes, interfaces, and substrates plays a crucial role in shaping the self-assembly of particles adsorbed on these surfaces. However, little is known about the interplay between particle anisotropy and surface…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-10-30 Gautam Bordia , Thomas P. Russell , Ahmad K. Omar

We study the interaction of two parallel rigid cylinders on the surface of a thin elastic film supported on a pool of liquid. The excess energy of the surface due to the curvature of the stretched film induces attraction of the cylinders…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2014-08-08 Aditi Chakrabarti , Manoj K. Chaudhury

We consider a theoretical model for a binary mixture of colloidal particles and spherical emulsion droplets. The hard sphere colloids interact via additional short-ranged attraction and long-ranged repulsion. The droplet-colloid interaction…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2012-01-11 Ingmar Schwarz , Andrea Fortini , Claudia Simone Wagner , Alexander Wittemann , Matthias Schmidt

Strong particulate gels are widely believed to behave poroelastically in compression, e.g. in sedimentation, even though they consolidate irreversibly because of the stickiness of the particles. Particulate gels are usually adhesive as well…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2009-03-06 Richard Buscall

Chirality, ubiquitous in complex biological systems, can be controlled and quantified in synthetic materials such as cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) systems. In this work, we study spherical shells of CLC under weak anchoring conditions.…

We design a system with a binary suspension of colloids and a surface that triggers the self-assembly of crystallites with a finite thickness. The proposed design allows controlling the number of layers forming the aggregate and constrains…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-05-05 Akshaya Kumar Jena , Aashima Aashima , Pritam Kumar Jana , Bortolo Matteo Mognetti

Aggregation processes in systems of planar macromolecules and colloids drive a broad range of phenomena in natural systems and soft materials. Depending on chemical architecture, intermolecular interactions in these systems may favor…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-11-20 B. Martínez-Haya , N. Morillo , A. Cuetos

A heterogeneous and dilute suspension of catalytically active colloids is studied as a non-equilibrium analogue of ionic systems, which has the remarkable feature of action-reaction symmetry breaking. Symmetrically coated colloids are found…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-06-16 Rodrigo Soto , Ramin Golestanian

Monodisperse rod-like colloidal particles are known for spontaneously forming both nematic and smectic liquid crystal phases, but their self-assembly was typically exploited from the fundamental soft condensed matter physics perspective.…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-12-29 Yong Xie , Yuanyuan Li , Guoqing Wei , Qingkun Liu , Haridas Mundoor , Ziyu Chen , Ivan I. Smalyukh

Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCEs) change color under strain, offering attractive prospects for smart textiles, soft robotics, and photonic devices. However, the helical structure of CLCEs averages out the exceptional anisotropy…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-10-28 Jiazhe Ma , John S. Biggins , Fan Feng , Zhongqiang Yang

Addition of particles to a viscoelastic suspension dramatically alters the properties of the mixture, particularly when it is sheared or otherwise processed. Shear-induced stretching of the polymers results in elastic stress that causes a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2023-06-28 Sijie Sun , Nan Xue , Stefano Aime , Hyoungsoo Kim , Jizhou Tang , Gareth H. McKinley , Howard A. Stone , David A. Weitz

Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-06-15 Lorenzo Di Michele , Francesco Varrato , Jurij Kotar , Simon H. Nathan , Giuseppe Foffi , Erika Eiser

Blue phases of cholesteric liquid crystals offer a spectacular example of naturally occurring disclination line networks. Here we numerically solve the hydrodynamic equations of motion to investigate the response of three types of blue…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2009-11-11 A. Dupuis , D. Marenduzzo , E. Orlandini , J. M. Yeomans

Ellipsoidal particles confined at liquid interfaces exhibit complex self-assembly behaviour due to quadrupolar capillary interactions induced by meniscus deformation. These interactions cause particles to attract each other in either…

We investigate the behavior of colloidal suspensions with different volume fractions confined between parallel walls under a range of steady shears. We model the particles using molecular dynamics (MD) with full hydrodynamic interactions…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2014-09-18 Frances E. Mackay , Kyle Pastor , Mikko Karttunen , Colin Denniston

This mini-review discusses the recent contribution of theoretical and computational physics as well as experimental efforts to the understanding of the behavior of colloidal particles in confined geometries and at liquid crystalline…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2010-11-05 Mykola Tasinkevych , Denis Andrienko

Colloidal dispersions are prized as model systems to understand basic properties of materials, and are central to a wide range of industries from cosmetics to foods to agrichemicals. Among the key developments in using colloids to address…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-06-22 Jun Dong , Francesco Turci , Robert L. Jack , Malcolm A. Faers , C. Patrick Royall

One of the challenges of self-assembling finite-sized colloidal aggregates with a sought morphology is the necessity of precisely sorting the position of the colloids at the microscopic scale to avoid the formation of off-target structures.…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2020-01-31 Pritam Kumar Jana , Bortolo Matteo Mognetti