Related papers: Modulation of structural short-range order due to …
Although nanocrystalline alloys regularly exhibit high strengths, their use in structural applications often face challenges due to sample size limitations, unstable microstructures, and the limited ability to plastically deform. The…
In the past few years, phase-change materials have become increasingly important in nano-photonics and optoelectronics. The advantages of sizeable optical contrast between phases and the additional degree of freedom from phase switching…
We study the behavior of negatively charged colloids with two positively charged polar caps close to a planar patterned surface. The competition between the different anisotropic components of the particle-particle interaction patterns is…
The self-assembly of nanocrystals enables new classes of materials whose properties are controlled by the periodicities of the assembly, as well as by the size, shape and composition of the nanocrystals. While self-assembly of spherical…
Nanostructured electrodes with voids or interconnected pores accommodate large volume changes, shorten ion diffusion pathways, and enhance the structural reversibility of alloying electrodes. While these nanoporous features improve the…
The stability of chemically complex nanoparticles is governed by an immense configurational space arising from heterogeneous local atomic environments across surface and interior regions. Efficiently identifying low-energy configurations…
When short-range attractions are combined with long-range repulsions in colloidal particle systems, complex microphases can emerge. Here, we study a system of isotropic particles which can form lamellar structures or a disordered fluid…
Rings comprising chemically bonded atoms are essential topological motifs for the structural ordering of network-forming materials. Quantification of such larger motifs beyond short-range pair correlation is essential for understanding the…
Amorphous solids relax via slow molecular rearrangement induced by thermal fluctuations or applied stress. Although microscopic structural signatures predicting these structural relaxations have long been sought, a physically motivated…
Electron conduction through bare metal oxide nanocrystal (NC) films is hindered by surface depletion regions resulting from the presence of surface states. We control the radial dopant distribution in tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) NCs as a…
Hierarchical self-assembly arranges nanostructures at different length scales. It gradually becomes an effective method of fabricating artificial metamaterials from composite nanostructures tailored for a particular response. Hierarchical…
Sub-nanometer aqueous clusters containing a single trivalent metal cation can exhibit charge-induced structural instabilities. Here, we present computational evidence that clusters containing a single \ce{Fe^{3+}}, \ce{Lu^{3+}}, or…
Due to the lack of long-range order, it remains challenging to characterize the structure of disordered solids and understand the nature of the glass transition. Here we propose a new structural order parameter by taking into account…
In solids, chemical short-range order (CSRO) refers to the self-organisation of atoms of certain species occupying specific crystal sites. CSRO is increasingly being envisaged as a lever to tailor the mechanical and functional properties of…
Disorder-induced effects on plasmon coupling in chains of metallic nanoparticles are studied within a dipole model, by considering two types of disorder: fluctuations of the particles' shapes and fluctuations of their positions. Typical…
Structure of monolayers built during adsorption process is strongly related to the properties of adsorbed particles. The most important factor is their shape. For example, adsorption of elongated molecules on patterned surfaces may produce…
In strongly correlated metals, long-range magnetic order is sometimes found only upon introduction of a minute amount of $disordered$ non-magnetic impurities to the unordered clean samples. To explain such anti-intuitive behavior, we…
Disorder in crystals is rarely random, and instead involves local correlations whose presence and nature are hidden from conventional crystallographic probes. This hidden order can sometimes be controlled, but its importance for physical…
Complexity in materials often arises from competing interactions at the atomic length scale. One such example are the strongly correlated heavy-fermion materials where the competition between Kondo screening and antiferromagnetic ordering…
Elastoplastic properties of nanocrystalline metals are non-uniform on the scale of the grain size, and this non-uniformity affects macroscopic quantities as, in these systems, a significant part of the material is at or adjacent to a grain…