Related papers: Property Decoupling across the Nucleus-Melt Interf…
We study the nucleation of blebs, i.e., protrusions arising from a local detachment of the membrane from the cortex of a cell. Based on a simple model of elastic linkers with force-dependent kinetics, we show that bleb nucleation is…
We investigate with computer simulations the critical radius of pores in a lipid bilayer membrane. Ilton et al. (2016) recently showed that nucleated pores in a homopolymer film can increase or decrease in size, depending on whether they…
One of most intriguing problems of heterogeneous crystal nucleation in droplets is its strong enhancement in the contact mode (when the foreign particle is presumably in some kind of contact with the droplet surface) compared to the…
The correlations between the segments of a semidilute polymer solution are found to induce correlations in the positions of small particles added to the solution. Small means a diameter much less than the polymer's correlation length. In…
Drawing an analogy to the paradigm of quasi-elastic neutron scattering, we present a general approach for quantitatively investigating the spatiotemporal dependence of structural anisotropy relaxation in deformed polymers by using…
Star polymers can exhibit a heterogeneous dynamical behavior due to their internal structure. In this work we employ atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to study translational motion in non-entangled polystyrene and poly(ethylene…
In this work we study the spreading dynamics of tiny liquid droplets on solid surfaces in the case where the ends of the molecules feel different interactions with respect to the surface. We consider a simple model of dimers and short…
The presence of nanoparticles in a diblock copolymer leads to changes in the morphology and properties of the matrix and can produce highly organized hybrid materials. The resulting material properties depend not only on the polymer…
Microscopy observations show that suspensions of synthetic and natural nano-layered smectite clay particles submitted to a strong external electric field undergo a fast and extended structuring. This structuring results from the interaction…
Currently, identification of crystallization pathways in polymers is being carried out using molecular simulation-based data on a preset cut-off point on a single order parameter (OP) to define nucleated or crystallized regions. Aside from…
Nematic polymeric networks are (heat and light) activable materials, which combine the features of rubber and nematic liquid crystals. When only the stretching energy of a thin sheet of nematic polymeric network is minimized, the intrinsic…
Atomic nuclei exhibit multiple energy scales ranging from hundreds of MeV in binding energies to fractions of an MeV for low-lying collective excitations. As the limits of nuclear binding is approached near the neutron- and proton…
Homogeneous nucleation process of polyethylene (PE) is studied with full-atom molecular dynamic simulation. To account the complex shape with low symmetry and the peculiar intra-chain conformational order of polymer, we introduce a shape…
The structure of polymers at solid interfaces evolves over time, but the corresponding changes in their rheological properties remain poorly understood. Here, using a home-built quartz tuning fork atomic force microscope-based…
Recent investigations on the coalescence of polymeric droplets on a solid substrate have reported strong disagreements; the heart of the issue is whether coalescence of polymeric drops is similar to that of Newtonian fluid and is…
Exploiting the framework of peridynamics, a dimensionally-reduced plate formulation is developed that allows for the through-thickness nucleation and growth of fracture surfaces, enabling the treatment of delamination in a lower-dimensional…
The state space of a polymer molecule is analysed. We show how the size of the state space can be reduced on the basis of symmetry. In the reduced state space, the probability of a new state (termed below as class) is equal to the number of…
We study the equilibrium configuration of a nematic liquid crystal bounded by a rough surface. The wrinkling of the surface induces a partial melting in the degree of orientation. This softened region penetrates the bulk up to a length…
The uptake and sorption of charged molecules by responsive polymer membranes and hydrogels in aqueous solutions is of key importance for the development of soft functional materials. Here we investigate the partitioning of simple monoatomic…
The properties of polymeric nanofibers can be tailored and enhanced by properly managing the structure of the polymeric molecules at the nanoscale. Although electrospun polymer fibers are increasingly exploited in many technological…