Related papers: Floppy hydrated salt microcrystals
Understanding, predicting and eventually improving the resistance to fracture of silicate materials is of primary importance to design new glasses that would be tougher, while retaining their transparency. However, the atomic mechanism of…
Continuum models of plasticity fail to capture the richness of microstructural evolution because the continuum is a homogeneous construction. The present study shows that an alternative way is available at the mesoscale in the form of truly…
Recent theoretical works exploring the hydrodynamics of soft material in non-equilibrium situations are reviewed. We discuss the role of hydrodynamic interactions for three different systems: i) the deformation and orientation of…
The nucleation of crystals from the liquid melt is often characterized by a competition between different crystalline structures or polymorphs, and can result in nuclei with heterogeneous compositions. These mixed-phase nuclei can display…
The salt-induced microheterogeneity (MH) formation in binary liquid mixtures is studied by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and liquid state theory. Previous experiments have shown that this phenomenon occurs for antagonistic salts,…
We demonstrate that plastic deformation in solids is associated with a dynamic transition that is reminiscent to the transition from a superconducting to a mixed phase in Type II superconductors. We report analytic calculations, extensive…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…
AIMD results on a liquid krypton-water system are compared to recent XAFS results for the radial hydration structure for a Kr atom in liquid water solution. The comparisons with the liquid solution results are satisfactory and significantly…
For over a century, the structure of materials has been described by a combination of rotations, rotation-inversions and translational symmetries. By recognizing the reversal of static structural rotations between clockwise and…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the dependence of the structural and vibrational properties of the surfaces of sodo-silicate glasses on the sodium content as well as the nature of the surface. Two types of glass surfaces…
We conducted experiments to directionally freeze agar hydrogel drops with different polymer concentrations, on a copper substrate maintained at low temperature. Unlike the water droplet studied in the literature, where the liquid part can…
Space-filling assemblies of athermal hydrophobic particles floating at an air-water interface, called particle rafts, are shown to undergo an unusual phase transition between two i.e., a low density `less-rigid and a high density…
Many biological, culinary, and engineering processes lead to the co-encapsulation of several soft particles within a liquid interface. In these situations the particles are bound together by the capillary forces that deform them and…
Microscopy observations show that suspensions of synthetic and natural nano-layered smectite clay particles submitted to a strong external electric field undergo a fast and extended structuring. This structuring results from the interaction…
Some of the synthesis methods and physical properties of iron-oxide based magnetic nanoparticles such as Fe3-xO4 and CoxFe3-xO4 are reviewed because of their interest in health, environmental applications, and ultra-high-density magnetic…
Collagen type I is well-known for its outstanding mechanical properties which it inherits from its hierarchical structure. Collagen type I fibrils may be viewed as an heterogeneous material made of protein, macromolecules (such as…
Nematic liquid crystals confined to geometrically as well as chemically patterned substrate on one end and a flat substrate with strong anchoring on the other is studied using non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo methods. We observe significant…
Liquid water is reluctant to lose hydrogen-bond coordination. Here we reveal that it also demands contraction and reorientation of the second molecular shell to compensate for coordination defects. Such molecular principle will be shown to…
Molecular crystals often exist in multiple competing polymorphs, showing significantly different physico-chemical properties. Computational crystal structure prediction is key to interpret and guide the search for the most stable or useful…
An empirical potential that has been widely used to perform molecular dynamics studies on the fracture behavior of FeP metallic glasses is shown to exhibit spinodal decomposition in the composition range commonly studied. The phosphorous…