Related papers: Inverse Solidification Induced by Active Janus Par…
Metastable gels formed by weakly attractive colloidal particles display a distinctive two-stage time-dependent settling behavior under their own weight. Initially a space-spanning network is formed that for a characteristic time, which we…
Active matter classifies systems consisting of self-propelled units which convert the energy stored locally or extracted from their environment into directed motion. It has recently attracted considerable attention due to rich new physics…
We report a metadynamics simulation study of crystallization in a deep undercooled metallic glass-forming liquid by developing appropriate collective variables. Through a combined analysis of free energy surface (FES) and atomic-level…
We discuss the microscopic mechanisms by which low-temperature amorphous states, such as ultrastable glasses, transform into equilibrium fluids, after a sudden temperature increase. Experiments suggest that this process is similar to the…
Micron-sized particles moving through solution in response to self-generated chemical gradients serve as model systems for studying active matter. Their far-reaching potential applications will require the particles to sense and respond to…
We study the relaxation dynamics of a binary liquid mixture near a light-absorbing Janus particle after switching on and off illumination using experiments and theoretical models. The dynamics is controlled by the temperature gradient…
Defects in the atomic lattice of solids are sometimes desired. For example, atomic vacancies, single ones or more elaborated defective structures, can generate localized magnetic moments in a non magnetic crystalline lattice. Increasing…
Self-phoretic Janus particles move by inducing -- via non-equilibrium chemical reactions occurring on their surfaces -- changes in the chemical composition of the solution in which they are immersed. This process leads to gradients in…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
Crystalline defects can modify quantum interactions in solids, causing unintuitive, even favourable, properties such as quantum Hall effect or superconducting vortex pinning. Here we present another example of this notion - an unexpected…
Colloidal crystals formed by size-asymmetric binary particles co-assemble into a wide variety of colloidal compounds with lattices akin to ionic crystals. Recently, a transition from a compound phase with a sublattice of small particles to…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
Recent experiments have shown that colloidal suspensions can spontaneously self-assemble into dense clusters of various internal structures, sizes and dynamical properties when doped with active Janus particles. Characteristically, these…
Topological defects such as vortices, dislocations or domain walls define many important effects in superconductivity, superfluidity, magnetism, liquid crystals, and plasticity of solids. Here we address the breakdown of the…
What characterises a solid is its way to respond to external stresses. Ordered solids, such crystals, display an elastic regime followed by a plastic one, both well understood microscopically in terms of lattice distortion and dislocations.…
We study light-activated quasi-2d gels made of a colloidal network doped with Janus particles. Following the gel formation, the internal dynamics of the gel are monitored before, during, and after the light activation. We monitor both the…
We demonstrate that two-dimensional crystals made of active particles can experience extremely large spontaneous deformations without melting. Using particles mostly interacting via pairwise repulsive forces, we show that such active…
Point defects play a crucial role in crystalline materials as they do not only impact the thermodynamic properties but are also central to kinetic processes. While they are necessary in thermodynamic equilibrium spontaneous defect formation…
Freezing or solidification of impacting droplets is omnipresent in nature and technology, be it a rain droplet falling on a supercooled surface, be it in inkjet printing where often molten wax is used, be it in added manufacturing or in…
We show that a system of particles interacting through the exp-6 pair potential, commonly used to describe effective interatomic forces under high compression, exhibits anomalous melting features such as reentrant melting and a rich solid…