Related papers: Compositional fluctuations and polymorph selection…
Monte-Carlo simulations and small-angle x-ray scattering experiments were used to determine the phase diagram of aqueous dispersions of titratable nano-colloids with a moderate size polydispersity over a broad range of monovalent salt…
Understanding how colloidal suspensions behave in confined environments has a striking relevance in practical applications. Despite the fact that the behaviour of colloids in the bulk is key to identify the main elements affecting their…
The phase diagram of colloidal hard superballs, of which the shape interpolates between cubes and octahedra via spheres, is determined by free-energy calculations in Monte Carlo simulations. We discover not only a stable face-centered cubic…
Despite its fundamental and technological importance, a microscopic understanding of the crystallization process is still elusive. By computer simulations of the hard-sphere model we reveal the mechanism by which thermal fluctuations drive…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Nucleation in systems with a metastable liquid-gas critical point is the prototypical example of a two-step nucleation process, in which the appearance of the critical nucleus is preceded by the formation of a liquid-like density…
In a cluster crystal, each lattice site is occupied by multiple soft-core particles. As the number density is increased at zero temperature, a `cascade' of isostructural phase transitions can occur between states whose site occupancy…
We introduce a novel coarse-grained bead-spring model for flexible polymers to systematically examine the effects of an adjusted bonded potential on the formation and stability of structural macrostates in a thermal environment. The density…
The ability to reliably predict the structures and stabilities of a molecular crystal and its polymorphs without any prior experimental information would be an invaluable tool for a number of fields, with specific and immediate applications…
We use machine learning algorithms to detect the crystalline phase in undercooled melts in molecular dynamics simulations. Our classification method is based on local conformation and environmental fingerprints of individual monomers. In…
We study the spontaneous crystallization of an assembly of highly monodisperse steel spheres under shaking, as it evolves from localized icosahedral ordering towards a packing reaching crystalline ordering. Towards this end, real space…
Confinement can have a considerable effect on the behavior of particle systems, and is therefore an effective way to discover new phenomena. A notable example is a system of identical bosons at low temperature under an external field…
Collapse modes in compressed simple cubic (SC) and body-centered cubic (BCC) periodic arrangements of elastic frictionless beads were studied numerically using the discrete element method. Under pure hydrostatic compression, the SC…
The theory of mesoscopic fluctuations is applied to inhomogeneous solids consisting of chaotically distributed regions with different crystalline structure. This approach makes it possible to describe statistical properties of such mixture…
Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the structural phase transition in body-centered cubic (bcc) single crystal iron under high strain rate loading. We study the nucleation and growth of the hexagonal-close-packed…
Point defects in real crystals at finite temperatures are inevitable. Their dynamics severely influence the mechanical properties of crystals under shear giving rise to nonlinear effects such as ductility. Therefore, it is crucial to…
Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the structural characteristics of an interacting hard sphere system with shifted charge to elucidate the effect of the non-centrosymmetric interaction on its phase behavior. Two different phase…
Rapid solidification leads to unique microstructural features, where a less studied topic is the formation of various crystalline defects, including high dislocation densities, as well as gradients and splitting of the crystalline…
We examine, using molecular dynamics simulation, the structure and thermodynamics of the (100) and (111) disordered face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal/melt interfaces for a binary hard-sphere system. This study is an extension of our…
Colloids play an important role in fundamental science as well as in nature and technology. They have had a strong impact on the fundamental understanding of statistical physics. For example, colloids have helped to obtain a better…