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The Kosterlitz-Thouless and the Hexatic phase transitions are celebrated examples of dipole (vortex, dislocation) induced transitions in condensed matter physics. For very clear reasons, these important ``topological" transitions are…
Anisotropic particles oriented in a specific direction can act as artificial atoms and molecules, and their controlled assembly can result in a wide variety of ordered structures. Towards this, we demonstrate the orientation transitions of…
The surface curvature of membranes, interfaces, and substrates plays a crucial role in shaping the self-assembly of particles adsorbed on these surfaces. However, little is known about the interplay between particle anisotropy and surface…
Computer simulations are presented of the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates a distance H apart. The plates are neutral and do not impose any anchoring on the particles. Depending on the…
Hard convex polyhedra, idealized models for anisotropic colloids and nanoparticles, are known to form variety of orientational phases despite the regular arrangement of particles in the crystalline assemblies. Based on the orientational…
The secretion of vesicles for intracellular transport often rely on the aggregation of specialized membrane-bound proteins into a coat able to curve cell membranes. The nucleation and growth of a protein coat is a kinetic process that…
We experimentally explore the morphological evolution of cages in quasi-two-dimensional suspensions of colloidal fluids, uncovering a complex dynamic restructuring in the fluid. Although cages display isotropic evolution in the laboratory…
We propose a simple microscopic model of molecular dynamics simulation to study orientational glass in three dimensions. We present simulation results for mixtures of mildly anisotropic particles and spherical impurities. We realize fcc…
We study a quasi-two-dimensional monolayer of granular rods fluidized by a spatially and temporally homogeneous upflow of air. By tracking the position and orientation of the particles, we characterize the dynamics of the system with…
We study in this work the dynamics of a collection of identical hollow spheres (ping-pong balls) that rest on a horizontal metallic grid. Fluidization is achieved by means of a turbulent air current coming from below. The upflow is adjusted…
Many elastic structures exhibit rapid shape transitions between two possible equilibrium states: umbrellas become inverted in strong wind and hopper popper toys jump when turned inside-out. This snap-through is a general motif for the…
Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…
Stochastic homogeneous hyperelastic solids are characterised by strain-energy densities where the parameters are random variables defined by probability density functions. These models allow for the propagation of uncertainties from input…
Systems with two species of active molecular motors moving on (cytoskeletal) filaments into opposite directions are studied theoretically using driven lattice gas models. The motors can unbind from and rebind to the filaments. Two motors…
Melting and freezing transitions in two dimensional systems are known to show highly unusual characteristics. Most of the earlier studies considered atomic systems; the melting behavior in two dimensional molecular solids is still largely…
To a significant extent, the rich physical properties of photonic crystals are determined by the underlying geometry, in which the composed symmetry operators and their combinations contribute to the unique topological invariant to…
We investigate the physical properties of steady flows in a holographic first-order phase transition model, extending from the thermodynamics at equilibrium to the real-time dynamics far from equilibrium. Through spinodal decomposition or…
The displacement of a fluid by another less viscous one in a quasi-two dimensional geometry typically leads to complex fingering patterns. In an isotropic system, dense-branching growth arises, which is characterized by repeated…
We present Monte Carlo simulation results of the two-dimensional Zwanzig fluid, which consists of hard line segments which may orient either horizontally or vertically. At a certain critical fugacity, we observe a phase transition with a…
The thermodynamics of proteins indicate that folding/unfolding takes place either through stable intermediates or through a two-state process without intermediates. The rather short folding times of the two-state process indicate that…