Related papers: Defects in Crystals of Soft Colloidal Particles
We report Monte Carlo studies of a two-dimensional soft colloidal crystal confined in a strip geometry by parallel walls. The wall-particle interaction has corrugations along the length of the strip. Compressing the crystal by decreasing…
The structural properties of packed soft-core particles provide a platform to understand the cross-pollinated physical concepts in solid-state- and soft-matter physics. Confined on spherical surface, the traditional differential geometry…
We generalize, and then use, a recently introduced formalism to study thermal fluctuations of atomic displacements in several two and three dimensional crystals. We study both close packed as well as open crystals with multi atom bases.…
Point defects in real crystals at finite temperatures are inevitable. Their dynamics severely influence the mechanical properties of crystals under shear giving rise to nonlinear effects such as ductility. Therefore, it is crucial to…
Impurities in crystalline materials introduce disorder into an otherwise ordered structure due to the formation of lattice defects and grain boundaries. The properties of the resulting polycrystal can differ remarkably from those of the…
Columnar crystals contain defects in the form of vacancy/interstitial loops or strings of vacancies and interstitials bounded by column ``heads'' and ``tails''. These defect strings are oriented by the columnar lattice and can change size…
Discrete simulation methods are efficient tools to investigate the complex behaviors of complex fluids made of either dry granular materials or dilute suspensions. By contrast, materials made of soft and/or concentrated units (emulsions,…
We report a numerical calculation of the elastic constants of the fcc and hcp crystal phases of monodisperse hard-sphere colloids. Surprisingly, some of these elastic constants are very different (up to 20%), even though the free energy,…
We present computer simulations of a system of purely repulsive soft colloidal particles interacting via the Hertz potential and constrained to a two-dimensional plane. This potential describes the elastic interaction of weakly deformable…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
Point defects are ubiquitous in two dimensional crystals and play a fundamental role in determining their mechanical and thermodynamical properties. When crystals are formed on a curved background, finite length grain boundaries (scars) are…
As is well known, hard-sphere crystals of the fcc and hcp type differ very little in their thermodynamic properties. Nonetheless, recent computer simulations by Pronk and Frenkel indicate that the elastic response to mechanical deformation…
Soft colloids allow to explore high density states well beyond random close packing. An important open question is whether softness controls the dynamics under these dense conditions. While experimental works reported conflicting results,…
The discrete Gaussian model for the surface of a crystal deposited on a disordered substrate is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. A continuous transition is found from a phase with a thermally-induced roughness to a glassy one in which…
We study the vibrational spectra of one-dimensional statically compressed granular crystals (arrays of elastic particles in contact) containing defects. We focus on the prototypical settings of one or two spherical defects (particles of…
The manipulation of individual colloidal particles using optical tweezers has allowed vacancies to be created in two-dimensional (2d) colloidal crystals, with unprecedented possibility of real-time monitoring the dynamics of such defects…
Zero- and two-dimensional crystal defects form in open statistical ensembles, such as the grand canonical, that are usually inaccessible with conventional simulation techniques. This longstanding challenge is overcome with a new Hamiltonian…
Unlike atoms, colloidal particles are not identical, but can only be synthesised within a finite size tolerance. Colloids are therefore polydisperse, i.e. mixtures of infinitely many components with sizes drawn from a continuous…
We use numerical simulations to understand how random deviations from the ideal spherical shape affect the ability of hard particles to form fcc crystalline structures. Using a system of hard spheres as a reference, we determine the…
In the study of crystal nucleation via computer simulations, hard spheres are arguably the most extensively explored model system. Nonetheless, even in this simple model system, the complex thermodynamics of crystal nuclei can sometimes…