Related papers: What dictates soft clay-like Lithium superionic co…
Lithium halides with the general formula Li$_x$M$_y$X$_6$, where M indicates transition metal ions and X halide anions are very actively studied as solid-state electrolytes, because of relatively low cost, high stability and Li…
Lithium superionic conductors (LSICs) are crucial for next-generation solid-state batteries, offering exceptional ionic conductivity and enhanced safety for renewable energy and electric vehicles. However, their discovery is extremely…
Efficient mixing of colloids, particles or molecules is a central issue in many processes. It results from the complex interplay between flow deformations and molecular diffusion, which is generally assumed to control the homogenization…
When calcium salts are added to an aqueous solution of polysaccharide pectin, ionic cross-links form between pectin chains, giving rise to a gel network in dilute solution. In this work, dynamic light scattering (DLS) is employed to study…
Molecular dynamics in pure water and aqueous salt solutions remain incompletely understood, partly due to the apparent contradictions between results from different spectroscopic techniques. In this work, we demonstrate, by detailed…
We present a technique for engineering quantum magnets via ultracold polar molecules in optical lattices and explore exotic interplay between its spin superfluidity and solidity. The molecular ground and first excited rotational states are…
Solid-state superionic conductors (SSICs) are promising alternatives to liquid electrolytes in batteries and other energy storage technologies. The rational design of SSICs and ultimately their deployment in battery technologies is hindered…
Soft matter materials, such as polymers, membranes, proteins, are often electrically charged. This makes them water soluble, which is of great importance in technological application and a prerequisite for biological function. We discuss a…
Molecular dynamics simulations of aqueous NaCl, KCl, NaI, and KI solutions are used to study the effects of salts on the properties of the liquid/vapor interface. The simulations use the models which include both charge transfer and…
From bone and wood to concrete and carbon fibre, composites are ubiquitous natural and engineering materials. Eshelby's inclusion theory describes how macroscopic stress fields couple to isolated microscopic inclusions, allowing prediction…
Water-in-salt electrolytes (WiSEs) are a class of super-concentrated electrolytes that have shown much promise in replacing organic electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries. At the extremely high salt concentrations of WiSEs, ionic association…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
We present a mechanism for the stabilization of colloids in liquid mixtures without use of surfactants or polymers. When a suitable salt is added to a solvent mixture, the coupling of the colloid's surface chemistry and the preferential…
We conceive liquid-metal-derived superconductors (LMDS) as a unified paradigm that enables the quick fabrication of superconducting materials under near-ambient conditions through introducing room-temperature liquid metals (LMs) as dynamic…
We investigate the formation of cluster crystals with multiply occupied lattice sites on a spherical surface in systems of ultra-soft particles interacting via repulsive, bounded pair potentials. Not all interactions of this kind lead to…
From understanding the sand on the beach to the foam on your beer, soft sphere simulations have been crucial to the study of the amorphous world around us. However, many of the materials we interact with on a daily basis aren't comprised of…
Using a strategy that may be applied in theory or in experiments, we identify the regime in which a model binary soft matter mixture forms quasicrystals. The system is described using classical density functional theory combined with…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
$^4$He nanodroplets doped with an alkali ion feature a snowball of crystallized layers surrounded by superfluid helium. For large droplets, we predict that a transitional supersolid layer can form, bridging between the solid core and the…
Colloidal particles with appropriate wetting properties can become very strongly trapped at an interface between two immiscible fluids. We have harnessed this phenomenon to create a new class of soft materials with intriguing and…