Related papers: Crystal growth in confinement
The phenomenon of salt creeping along a free surface remains only partially understood, particularly with respect to its dynamics. In this work, combining a theoretical model with controlled experiments, we identify three distinct kinetic…
Piezoelectric quartz SiO2 crystals are widely used in industry as oscillators. As a natural mineral, quartz and its relevant silicates are also of interest of geoscience and mineralogy. However, the nucleation and growth of quartz crystals…
Crucial to gaining control over crystallisation in multicomponent materials or accurately modelling rheological behaviour of magma flows is to understand the mechanisms by which crystal nuclei form. The microscopic nature of such nuclei,…
We study the three-dimensional structure formation when atoms are deposited onto a substrate with a decagonal quasicrystalline order. Molecular-dynamicscalculations show that the adsorbate layer consists of ordered nano-scale domains with…
We study a dense colloidal suspension confined between two quasiparallel glass plates as a model system for a supercooled liquid in confined geometries. We directly observe the three-dimensional Brownian motion of the colloidal particles…
We investigate the growth of two-dimensional (2D) crystals on fluctuating surfaces using a phase field crystal model that is relevant on atomic length and diffusive time scales. Motivated by recent experiments which achieved unprecedented…
Guidelines for growing insulin crystals of a uniform size are formulated and tested experimentally. A simple theoretical model based on the balance of matter predicts the time evolution of the crystal size and supersaturation. The time…
Complex crystal structures are composed of multiple local environments, and how this type of order emerges spontaneously during crystal growth has yet to be fully understood. We study crystal growth across various structures and along…
We analyze thermodynamics of water samples confined in nanopores and prove that although the freezing temperature can be dramatically lower, the suppression of the ice nucleation leading to the freezing temperature depression is a truly…
The surrounding world surprises us by the beauty and variety of complex shapes that emerge from nanometric to macroscopic scales. Natural or manufactured materials (sandstones, sedimentary rocks and cement), colloidal solutions (proteins…
With climate modeling predicting a raise of at least 2 C by year 2100, the fate of ice has become a serious concern, but we still do not understand how ice grows (or melts). In the atmosphere, crystal growth rates of basal and prismatic…
Shape transformations of hairy nanoparticles under confinement are studied using molecular dynamic simulations. We discuss the behavior of these particles in slits with inert or attractive walls. We assume that only chain-wall interactions…
The planar front of a growing a crystal is often destroyed by instabilities. In the case of growth from a condensed phase, the most frequent ones are diffusion instabilities, which will be but briefly discussed in simple terms in chapter…
The confinement of liquid crystals inside curved geometries leads to exotic structures, with applications ranging from bio-sensors to optical switches and privacy windows. Here we study how curvature affects the alignment of a cholesteric…
We describe laboratory-grown snow crystals that exhibit a triangular, plate-like morphology, and we show that the occurrence of these crystals is much more frequent than one would expect from random growth perturbations of the more-typical…
Organic molecular crystals encompass a vast range of materials from pharmaceuticals to organic optoelectronics and proteins to waxes in biological and industrial settings. Crystal defects from grain boundaries to dislocations are known to…
Kinetics of crystal-growth is investigated along the solid-liquid coexistence line for the (100), (110) and (111) orientations of the Lennard-Jones and Weeks-Chandler-Andersen fcc crystal-liquid interface, using non-equilibrium molecular…
Nucleation and growth is the dominant relaxation mechanism driving first order phase transitions. In two-dimensional at systems nucleation has been applied to a wide range of problems in physics, chemistry and biology. Here we study…
Crystallization during droplet evaporation gives rise to complex, self-organized structures, yet the mechanisms underlying the emergence of ordered functional phases remain poorly understood. In this study, we present a comprehensive,…
Self-poisoning is a kinetic trap that can impair or prevent crystal growth in a wide variety of physical settings. Here we use dynamic mean-field theory and computer simulation to argue that poisoning is ubiquitous because its emergence…