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A mechanism for self propulsion of deformable vesicle has been proposed, vesicle moves by sensing the self-generated chemical gradient. Like many molecular motors they suffer strong perturbations from the environment in which they move as a…
Indentation has been widely used for investigating the mechanical behavior of glasses. However, how the various microscopic properties (such as atomic structure and mechanics) of glass evolve from the immediate contact with the indenter to…
We propose a dynamical theory of low-temperature shear deformation in amorphous solids. Our analysis is based on molecular-dynamics simulations of a two-dimensional, two-component noncrystalline system. These numerical simulations reveal…
The understanding of glassy dynamics above the devitrification temperature of a glass remains poorly understood. Here, we use real-time AFM imaging to build a spatio-temporal map of the relaxation dynamics of a highly stable glass into its…
The microscopic understanding of the dramatic increase in viscosity of liquids when cooled towards the glass transition is a major unresolved issue in condensed matter physics. Here, we use machine learning methods to accelerate molecular…
We explore the Mode I fracture toughness of a polymer gel containing a semi-infinite, growing crack. First, an expression is derived for the energy release rate within the linearized, small-strain setting. This expression reveals a crack…
A fundamental assumption in our understanding of material rheology is that when microscopic deformations are reversible, the material responds elastically to external loads. Plasticity, i.e. dissipative and irreversible macroscopic changes…
The self-assembly of molecules at surfaces can be caused by a range of physical mechanisms. Assembly can be driven by intermolecular forces, or molecule-surface forces, or both; it can result in structures that are in equilibrium or that…
Plastic flow in amorphous solids is known to be carried by localized shear transformations (STs) which have been proposed to preferentially initiate from some defect units in the structure, akin to dislocations and point defects in…
The effect of ring stiffness and pressure on the glassy dynamics of a thermal assembly of two-dimensional ring polymers is investigated using extensive coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. In all cases, dynamical slowing down is…
Surface tension-driven flow techniques have recently emerged as an efficient means of shedding light into the rheology of thin polymer films. Motivated by experimental and theoretical approaches in films bearing a varying surface…
The relaxation of polymers around and below their glass transition temperature is governed by a range of correlated unit processes with a wide range of timescales. The fast deformation rates of shock loading can negate a significant…
Understanding the mechanical properties of glasses remains elusive since the glass transition itself is not fully understood, even in well studied examples of glass formers in two dimensions. In this context we demonstrate here: (i) a…
We present Molecular Dynamics simulations of the thermal glass transition in a dense model polymer liquid. We performed a comparative study of both constant volume and constant pressure cooling of the polymer melt. Great emphasis was laid…
We propose a new class of phenomenological models for dynamic glass transitions. The system consists of an ensemble of mesoscopic regions to which local energies are allocated. At each time step, a region is randomly chosen and a new local…
We study the stability of the glassy equilibrium state of a directed polymer in random media against weak perturbations including the intriguing problem of temperature-chaos. The statistical correlation of two real replica systems under…
Soft membranes are commonly employed in shape-morphing applications, where the material is programmed to achieve a target shape upon activation by an external trigger, and as coating layers that alter the surface characteristics of bulk…
The relaxation dynamics of glass-forming systems shows a multitude of features that are absent in normal liquids, such as non-exponential relaxation and a strong temperature-dependence of the relaxation time. Connecting these dynamic…
The ultraslow dynamics of glass-formers has been explained by two views considered as mutually exclusive: one invokes locally hindered mobility, the other rests on the complexity of the configuration space. Here we demonstrate that the…
The glass transition is considered within two toys models, a mean field spin glass and a directed polymer in a correlated random potential. In the spin glass model there occurs a dynamical transition, where the system condenses in a state…