Related papers: A short-range metastable defect in the double laye…
Water exhibits rich polymorphism, where more than 20 crystalline phases have been experimentally reported. Five of them are metastable and form at low temperatures by either heating amorphous ice or degassing clathrate hydrates. However,…
The structure of the recently identified metastable ice XVII, obtained by release of hydrogen from the C$_0$ D$_2$O-H$_2$ compound (filled ice), has been accurately measured by neutron powder diffraction. The diffraction pattern is indexed…
Based on neutron wide-angle diffraction and small-angle neutron scattering experiments, we show that there is a correlation between the preparational conditions of amorphous ice structures, their microscopic structural properties, the…
In this manuscript we report helium atom scattering (HAS) measurements of the structure of the first H2O layer on Au(111). The interaction between H2O and Au(111) is believed to be particularly weak and conflicting evidence from several…
Understanding water-metal interactions is central to disciplines spanning catalysis, electrochemistry, and atmospheric science. Monolayer ice phases are well established on hydrophilic surfaces, where strong water-substrate interactions…
We report the observation of a doubly-periodic surface defect-pattern in the liquid crystal 8CB, formed during the nematic--smectic A phase transition. The pattern results from the antagonistic alignment of the 8CB molecules, which is…
The phase diagram of H2O is extremely complex, in particular, it is believed that a second critical point exists deep below the supercooled water (SCW) region where two liquids of different densities coexist. The problem however, is that…
In a density-imbalanced bilayer Wigner crystal, where the ratio of electron densities in separate layers deviates slightly from unity, defects spontaneously form in one or both layers in the ground state of the system. Due to quantum…
Topological defects play a central role in the formation and organization of various biological systems. Historically, such nonequilibrium defects have been mainly studied in the context of homogeneous active nematics. Phase-separated…
The properties of some forms of water ice reserve still intriguing surprises. Besides the several stable or metastable phases of pure ice, solid mixtures of water with gases are precursors of other ices, since in some cases they may be…
Ice systems are prototypes of locally constrained dynamics. This is exemplified in Coulomb-liquid phases where a large space of configurations is sampled, each satisfying local ice rules. Dynamics proceeds through `flipping' rings, i.e.,…
Topological defects play a key role in two-dimensional active nematics, and a transient role in two-dimensional active polar fluids. In this paper, we study both the transient and long-time behavior of defects in two-dimensional active…
We present a large-scale (36000-particle) computational study of the "inherent structures" (IS) associated with equilibrium, two-dimensional, one-component Lennard-Jones systems. Our results provide strong support both for the…
We use classical molecular dynamics combined with the recently developed metadynamics method [A. Laio and M. Parrinello, Procs. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 20 (2002)] to study the process of bulk melting in hexagonal ice. Our simulations show…
Technological applications of novel metastable materials are frequently inhibited by abundant defects residing in these materials. Using first-principles methods we investigate the point defect thermodynamics and phase segregation in the…
We describe a novel crystal growth instability that enhances the development of thin edges, promoting the formation of plate-like or hollow columnar morphologies. This instability arises when diffusion-limited growth is coupled with…
We have observed phase defects in quasi-2D Bose-Einstein condensates close to the condensation temperature. Either a single or several equally spaced condensates are produced by selectively evaporating the sites of a 1D optical lattice.…
We study a continuum model of an extensile active nematic to show that mesoscale turbulence develops in two stages: (i) ordered regions undergo an intrinsic hydrodynamic instability generating walls, lines of stong bend deformations, (ii)…
Defects in liquid crystals are of great practical importance and theoretical interest. Despite tremendous efforts, predicting the location and transition of defects under various topological constraint and external field remains to be a…
We formulate the statistical dynamics of topological defects in the active nematic phase, formed in two dimensions by a collection of self-driven particles on a substrate. An important consequence of the non-equilibrium drive is the…