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Carbonates are the main species that bring carbon deep into our planet through subduction. They are an important rock-forming mineral group, fundamentally distinct from silicates in Earth's crust in that carbon binds to three oxygen atoms,…
Despite the fundamental importance of solid--solid transitions for metallurgy, ceramics, earth science, reconfigurable materials, and colloidal matter, the details of how materials transform between two solid structures are poorly…
Concurrent molecular dynamics simulations and ab initio calculations show that densification of silica under pressure follows a ubiquitous two-stage mechanism. First, anions form a close-packed sub-lattice, governed by the strong repulsion…
Colloidal gels gradually evolve as their structures reorganize, a process known as aging. Understanding this behavior is essential for fundamental science and practical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering. This study…
We find an order-disorder transition from crystals to disordered crystals for static packings of frictionless spheres. While the geometric indicators are mostly blind to the transition, disordered crystals already exhibit properties apart…
Based on first-principles calculation we predict two new thermodynamically stable layered-phases of silicon, named as silicites, which exhibit strong directionality in the electronic and structural properties. As compared to silicon…
Serpentinization and carbonation of ultramafic formations is a ubiquitous phenomenon, which deeply influences the biogeochemical cycles of water, hydrogen, carbon... while supporting the particular biosphere around the oceanic hydrothermal…
Calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the most abundant biogenic mineral on earth, plays a crucial role in various fields. Of the four polymorphs, calcite, aragonite, vaterite, and amorphous CaCO3, vaterite is the most enigmatic one due to an ongoing…
Polymorphism is ubiquitous in crystalline solids. Amorphous solids, such as glassy water and silicon, may undergo amorphous-to-amorphous transitions (AATs). The nature of AATs remains ambiguous, due to diverse system-dependent behaviors and…
As some of the most ancient materials in our Solar System, chondritic meteorites offer a valuable window into the early stages of planetary formation, particularly the accretion processes that built the most primitive asteroids. Until now,…
Microscopic pathways of structural phase transitions are difficult to probe because they occur over multiple, disparate time and length scales. Using $in$ $situ$ nanoscale cathodoluminescence microscopy, we visualize the thermally-driven…
Organolead halide perovskites are a family of hybrid organic-inorganic compounds whose remarkable optoelectronic properties have been under intensive scrutiny in recent years. Here we use inelastic X-ray scattering to study low-energy…
Polymorphism, which describes the occurrence of different lattice structures in a crystalline material, is a critical phenomenon in material science and condensed matter physics. It has emerged as a major focus for industry and regulatory…
Large single crystals of natural zircon were shock-loaded at 13.6 and 51.3 GPa in planar geometry. No structural changes were observed after loading at 13.6 GPa. Loading to 51.3 GPa resulted in zircon transformation to a denser…
Orbital physics plays a significant role for a vast number of important phenomena in complex condensed matter systems such as high-T$_c$ superconductivity and unconventional magnetism. In contrast, phenomena in superfluids -- especially in…
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 ability to control the structure of a crystalline solid on ultrafast timescales bears enormous potential for information storage and manipulation or generating new functional states of matter [1]. In many materials where the ultrafast…
Emergent crystals are periodic alignment of "emergent particles", i.e., localized collective behavior of atoms or their charges/spins/orbits. These novel states of matter, widely observed in various systems, may deform under mechanical…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…
We use molecular dynamics to show that plastic slip is a crucial component of the transformation mechanism of a square-to-triangular structural transition. The latter is a stylized analog of many other reconstructive phase transitions. To…