Related papers: Origin of reversible and irreversible atomic-scale…
We probe the mechanisms at work in the build-up of thermoreversible gel networks, with the help of hybrid gelatin gels containing a controlled density of irreversible, covalent crosslinks (CL), which we quench below the physical gelation…
The origin of thermal and quantum entanglement in a class of three-dimensional spin models, at low momenta, is traced to purely topological reasons. The establishment of the result is facilitated by the gauge principle which, when used in…
Plastic deformation of metals involves the complex evolution of dislocations forming strongly connected dislocation networks. These dislocation networks are based on dislocation reactions, which can form junctions during the interactions of…
We present a model and protocol that enable the generation of extremely stable computer glasses at minimal computational cost. The protocol consists of an instantaneous quench in an augmented potential energy landscape, with particle radii…
A wide variety of interacting particle assemblies driven by an external force are characterized by a transition between a blocked and a moving phase. The origin of this deblocking transition can be traced back to the presence of either…
Under sufficient permanent random covalent bonding, a fluid of atoms or small molecules is transformed into an amorphous solid network. Being amorphous, local structural properties in such networks vary across the sample. A natural order…
Understanding conformational change is crucial for programming and controlling the function of many mechanical systems such as allosteric enzymes and tunable metamaterials. Of particular interest is the relationship between the network…
The growth of an interface formed by the hierarchical deposition of particles of unequal size is studied in the framework of a dynamical network generated by a horizontal visibility algorithm. For a deterministic model of the deposition…
We study by light microscopy a soft glass consisting of a compact arrangement of polydisperse elastic spheres. We show that its slow and non-stationary dynamics results from the unavoidable small fluctuations of temperature, which induce…
We demonstrate the existence of unconventional rheological and memory properties in systems of soft-deformable particles whose energy depends on their shape, via numerical simulations. At large strains, these systems experience an…
Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we systematically study the effect of chain stiffness on the packing ability of linear polymers composed of hard spheres in extremely confined monolayers, corresponding effectively to 2D films.…
We have implemented a complex network description for metallic glasses, able to predict the elasto-plastic regime, the location of shear bands and the statistics that controls the plastic events that originate in the material due to a…
Tuning anisotropy in bulk metallic glasses, ideally isotropic, is of practical interest in optimizing properties and of fundamental interest in understanding the amorphous structure and its instability. By employing the quasi-elastic…
We demonstrate a practical way to perform decomposition of the elasto-plastic deformation directly from atomistic simulation snapshots. Through molecular dynamics simulations on a large single crystal, we elucidate the intricate process of…
We propose a microscopic model to study the avalanche problem of insulating glass deformed by external static uniform strain below $T=60$K. We use three-dimensional real-space renormalization procedure to carry out the glass mechanical…
The response of amorphous solids to a mechanical perturbation consists in an elastic and a plastic deformation. The latter is mediated by localized irreversible rearrangements associated with Eshelby-like quadrupolar singularities in the…
The flow and deformation of macromolecules is ubiquitous in nature and industry, and an understanding of this phenomenon at both macroscopic and microscopic length scales is of fundamental and practical importance. Here we present the…
Many physical systems exhibit plastic flow when subjected to slow steady shear. A unified picture of plastic flow is still lacking; however, there is an emerging theoretical understanding of such flows based on irreversible motions of the…
The atomistic mechanisms occurring during the processes of aging and rejuvenation in glassy materials involve very small structural rearrangements that are extremely difficult to capture experimentally. Here we use in-situ X-ray diffraction…
We show that model molecules with particular rotational symmetries can self-assemble into network structures equivalent to rhombus tilings. This assembly happens in an emergent way, in the sense that molecules spontaneously select irregular…