Related papers: Microtubules as electron-based topological insulat…

Microtubules are filament-shaped, polymeric proteins (~25 nm in diameter) involved in cellular structure and organization. We demonstrate the imaging of individual microtubules using a conventional bright-field microscope, without any…

Microtubules capture chromosomes during mitosis by stochastically switching between growth and shrinkage at catastrophe events. They display strikingly rich biochemistry and dynamics, regulated by a stabilizing cap with distinct…

A single monolayer of the layered semimetal WTe2 behaves as a two-dimensional topological insulator, with helical conducting edge modes surrounding a bulk state that becomes insulating at low temperatures. Here we present evidence that the…

The bulk-edge correspondence predicts that interfaces between topological insulators support robust currents. We prove this principle for PDEs that are periodic away from an interface. Our approach relies on semiclassical methods. It…

Ternary semiconducting or metallic half-Heusler compounds with an atomic composition 1:1:1 are widely studied for their flexible electronic properties and functionalities. Recently, a new material property of half-Heusler compounds was…

Bundles of filamentous polymers are primary structural components of a broad range of cytoskeletal structures, and their mechanical properties play key roles in cellular functions ranging from locomotion to mechanotransduction and…

The efficient and controlled assembly of complex structures from macromolecular building blocks is a critical open question in both biological systems and nanoscience. Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the self-assembly of…

Topology provides a unifying framework for understanding robust transport through protected edge states arising from nontrivial wavenumber topology. Extending these concepts to active matter, however, remains largely unexplored…

Microtubules are an essential physical building block of cellular systems. They are organized using specific crosslinkers, motors, and influencers of nucleation and growth. With the addition of anti-parallel crosslinkers, microtubule…

Electronic conductance through a single molecule is sensitive towards its structural orientation between two electrodes, owing to the distribution of molecular orbitals and their coupling to the electrode levels, that are governed by…

If superconductivity is induced in the metallic surface states of topological insulators via proximity, Majorana modes will be trapped on the vortex cores. The same effects hold for doped topological insulators which become bulk s-wave…

We present a systematic study of the influence of cell geometry on the orientational distribution of microtubules (MTs) nucleated from a single microtubule organizing center (MTOC). For simplicity we consider an elliptical cell geometry, a…

Functionality of many nonlinear and quantum optical devices relies on the effect of optical bistability. Using the microcavity exciton-polaritons in a honeycomb arrangement of microcavity pillars, we report the resonance response and…

We study equilibrium shapes and shape transformations of a confined semiflexible chain inside a soft lipid tubule using simulations and continuum theories. The deformed tubular shapes and chain conformations depend on the relative magnitude…

Topological insulators are quantum materials that have an insulating bulk state and a topologically protected metallic surface state with spin and momentum helical locking and a Dirac-like band structure. Unique and fascinating electronic…

The hallmark feature of topological insulators renders edge transport virtually impervious to scattering at defects and lattice disorder. In our work, we experimentally demonstrate a topological system, using a photonic platform, in which…

Asymmetric electrical conductance is theoretically demonstrated on the surface of a topological insulator (TI) in the limit of infinitesimally small forward and reverse biases between two spin selective electrodes. The discontinuous…

The role of image charges in nanoporous semiconductor materials is investigated within the framework of the effective mass and envelope function approximations. We show that nanometric air bubbles in these materials can act as…

In this review, we discuss recent progress in the explorations of topological materials beyond topological insulators; specifically, we focus on topological crystalline insulators and bulk topological superconductors. The basic concepts,…

We investigate the microtubule polymerization dynamics with catastrophe and rescue events for three different confinement scenarios, which mimic typical cellular environments: (i) The microtubule is confined by rigid and fixed walls, (ii)…