Related papers: Evidence for a liquid precursor to biomineral form…
We demonstrate that nature has produced a close-packed helical twisted filamentous material in the biomineralization of the mollusc. In liquid crystals, twist-bend nematics have been predicted and observed. We present and analyse evidence…
We report on a large scale computer simulation study of crystal nucleation in hard spheres. Through a combined analysis of real and reciprocal space data, a picture of a two-step crystallization process is supported: First dense, amorphous…
The interplay between crystal nucleation and the structure of the metastable fluid has been a topic of significant debate over recent years. In particular, it has been suggested that even in simple model systems such as hard or charged…
Over recent years, molecular simulations have provided invaluable insights into the microscopic processes governing the initial stages of crystal nucleation and growth. A key aspect that has been observed in many different systems is the…
Dynamical density functional simulations reveal structural aspects of crystal nucleation in undercooled liquids: the first appearing solid is amorphous, which promotes the nucleation of bcc crystals, but suppresses the appearance of the fcc…
While biological crystallization processes have been studied on the microscale extensively, models addressing the mesoscale aspects of such phenomena are rare. In this work, we investigate whether the phase-field theory developed in…
Active crystals are highly ordered structures that emerge from the self-organization of motile objects, and have been widely studied in synthetic and bacterial active matter. Whether collective crystallization phenomena can occur in groups…
Crystallization often proceeds through successive stages that lead to a gradual increase in organization. Using molecular simulation, we determine the nucleation pathway for solid solutions of copper and gold. We identify a new nucleation…
The sponge-like biomineralised calcite materials found in echinoderm skeletons are of interest in terms of both structure formation and biological function. Despite their crystalline atomic structure, they exhibit curved interfaces that…
We report a molecular dynamics simulation demonstrating that a columnar liquid crystal, commonly formed by disc-shaped molecules, can be formed by identical particles interacting via a spherically symmetric potential. Upon isochoric cooling…
A general Landau's free energy functional is used to study the dynamics of crystallization during liquid-solid Spinodal Decomposition (SD). The strong length scale selectivity imposed during the early stage of SD induces the appearance of…
The emergence of biomolecular homochirality is a critically important question about life phenomenon and the origins of life. In a previous paper (arXiv:1309.1229), I tentatively put forward a new hypothesis that the emergence of a single…
The growth, form, and division of prebiotic vesicles, membraneous bags of fluid of varying components and shapes is hypothesized to have served as the substrate for the origin of life. The dynamics of these out-of-equilibrium structures is…
Topologically nontrivial field configurations called "baby skyrmions" behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium…
When a macroscopic droplet spreads, a thin precursor film of liquid moves ahead of the advancing liquid-solid-vapor contact line. Whereas this phenomenon has been explored extensively for planar solid substrates, its presence in…
The hardest materials in living organisms are biologically grown crystalline minerals, or biominerals, which are also incredibly fracture-tough. Biomineral mesostructure includes size, shape, spatial arrangement, and crystal orientation of…
Biomembranes, primarily composed of lipid bilayers, are not merely passive barriers but dynamic and complex materials whose shapes are governed by the principles of soft matter physics. This review explores the shape problem in biomembranes…
The stability of organic solar cells is strongly affected by the morphology of the photoactive layers, whose separated crystalline and/or amorphous phases are kinetically quenched far from their thermodynamic equilibrium during the…
The enteric bacterium Proteus mirabilis, which is a pathogen that forms biofilms in vivo, can swarm over hard surfaces and form concentric ring patterns in colonies. Colony formation involves two distinct cell types: swarmer cells that…
We investigate the atomistic mechanism of homogeneous nucleation during solidification in molybdenum employing transition path sampling. The mechanism is characterized by the formation of a pre-structured region of high bond-orientational…