Related papers: Selective formation of metastable polymorphs in so…
Metasurfaces, and in particular those containing plasmonic-based metallic elements, constitute a particularly attractive set of materials. By means of modern nanolithographic fabrication techniques, flat, ultrathin optical elements may be…
We present theory and simulation of simultaneous chemical demixing and phase ordering in a polymer-liquid crystal mixture in conditions where isotropic- isotropic phase separation is metastable with respect to isotropic-nematic phase…
Properly modeling and predicting the scattering response of a metasurface is a particularly challenging task. This has been shown to be especially difficult if the metasurface supports both local and nonlocal interactions, in the form of…
Metasurfaces allow tailored control over electromagnetic wavefronts. However, due to the local conservation of power flow, a passive, lossless, and reflectionless metasurface is limited to imparting phase discontinuities -- and not power…
Polynomial dynamical systems are widely used to model and study real phenomena. In biochemistry, they are the preferred choice for modelling the concentration of chemical species in reaction networks with mass-action kinetics. These systems…
Auxiliary nanostructures introduce additional flexibility into optomechanical manipulation schemes. Metamaterials and metasurfaces capable to control electromagnetic interactions at the near-field regions are especially beneficial for…
We introduce a computational method to discover polymorphs in molecular crystals at finite temperature. The method is based on reproducing the crystallization process starting from the liquid and letting the system discover the relevant…
Metastable states in first-order phase-transitions have been traditionally described by classical nucleation theory (CNT). However, recently an increasing number of systems displaying such a transition have not been successfully modelled by…
Many materials containing colloids or polymers are polydisperse: They comprise particles with properties (such as particle diameter, charge, or polymer chain length) that depend continuously on one or several parameters. This review…
The last decade has witnessed a swiftly increasing interest in the design and production of novel multivalent molecules as powerful alternatives for conventional antibodies in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. However, while…
We propose a computationally lean, two-stage approach that reliably predicts self-assembly behavior of complex charged molecules on a metallic surfaces under electrochemical conditions. Stage one uses ab initio simulations to provide…
We consider the problem of state selection for a stochastic system, initially in an unstable stationary state, when multiple metastable states compete for occupation. Using path-integral techniques we derive remarkably simple and accurate…
Non-equilibrium selection pressures were proposed for the formation of oligonucleotides with rich functionalities encoded in their sequences, such as catalysis. Since phase separation was shown to direct various chemical processes, we ask…
Crystalline materials can form different structural arrangements (i.e. polymorphs) with the same chemical composition, exhibiting distinct physical properties depending on how they were synthesized or the conditions under which they…
Birefringent metasurfaces are two-dimensional structures capable of independently controlling the amplitude, phase and polarization of orthogonally polarized incident waves. In this work, we propose a in-depth discussion on the mathematical…
Understanding the mechanisms underlying crystal formation is crucial. For most systems, crystallization typically goes through a nucleation process that involves dynamics that happen at short time and length scales. Due to this, molecular…
Metasurfaces have shown promising potentials in shaping optical wavefronts while remaining compact compared to bulky geometric optics devices. Design of meta-atoms, the fundamental building blocks of metasurfaces, relies on trial-and-error…
The rates of activated processes, such as escape from a metastable state and nucleation, are exponentially sensitive to an externally applied field. We describe how this applies to modulation by high-frequency fields and illustrate it with…
Nonlinear optical phenomena are generally governed by geometry in matter systems, as they depend on the spatial arrangement of atoms within materials or molecules. Metasurfaces, through precisely designed geometries on a subwavelength…
In this work we describe the thermodynamics and mechanism of CO$_2$ polymorphic transitions under pressure from form I to form III combining standard molecular dynamics, well-tempered metadynamics and committor analysis. We find that the…