Related papers: Kinetics of Stacking Order Evolution During Hetero…
Based on a first-principles approach, we show that in a single crystal of a prototypical topological insulator such as Bi$_2$Se$_3$ the difference in the work function between adjacent surfaces with different crystal-face orientations…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
What makes a material a good ice nucleating agent? Despite the importance of heterogeneous ice nucleation to a variety of fields, from cloud science to microbiology, major gaps in our understanding of this ubiquitous process still prevent…
Most ice in nature forms thanks to impurities which boost the exceedingly low nucleation rate of pure supercooled water. However, the microscopic details of ice nucleation on these substances remain largely unknown. Here, we have unraveled…
Nucleation of a solid in solid is initiated by the appearance of distinct dynamical heterogeneities, consisting of `active' particles whose trajectories show an abrupt transition from ballistic to diffusive, coincident with the…
The interplay between crystal symmetry and charge stripe order in Pr1.67Sr0.33NiO4 and Nd1.67Sr0.33NiO4 has been studied by means of single crystal x-ray diffraction. In contrast to tetragonal La1.67Sr0.33NiO4, these crystals are…
In this work, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to study the fracture mechanism of ice crystals in a bulk phase and at ice-ice interfaces at the atomistic scale. We show that there exists a narrow disordered interfacial layer…
The assembly of nanometer-sized building blocks into complex morphologies is not only of fundamental interest but also plays a key role in material science and nanotechnology. We show that the shape of self-assembled superstructures formed…
Complex crystal structures are composed of multiple local environments, and how this type of order emerges spontaneously during crystal growth has yet to be fully understood. We study crystal growth across various structures and along…
Patterns are quotidian in nature. Distinct multiscale patterns are generally a consequence of nonequilibrium dynamical processes associated with mechanical or hydrodynamic instabilities. In this thesis, I report experimental investigations…
During directional solidification of the solvent in a colloidal suspension, the colloidal particles segregate from the growing solid, forming high-particle-density regions with structure on a hierarchy of length scales ranging from that of…
In this paper, we construct solvable ice models (six-vertex models) with stochastic weights and U-turn right boundary, which we term ``stochastic symplectic ice''. The models consist of alternating rows of two types of vertices. The…
Water freezing is ubiquitous on Earth, affecting many areas from biology to climate science and aviation technology. Probing the atomic structure in the homogeneous ice nucleation process from scratch is of great value but still…
Despite their considerable practical and biological applications, the link between molecular properties, assembly conditions and self-organized structure in confined polymer solutions remains elusive. Here, we explore the lyotropic nematic…
Ice crystals growing in highly supersaturated air at temperatures near -5 C exhibit a distinctive, nonplanar dendritic morphology that has not been previously documented or explained. We examine this structure and identify its most…
Particle sedimentation in the vicinity of a fixed horizontal vortex with time-dependent intensity can be chaotic, provided gravity is sufficient to displace the particle cloud while the vortex is off or weak. This "stretch, sediment and…
The process of crystallization is often understood in terms of the fundamental microstructural elements of the crystallite being formed, such as surface orientation or the presence of defects. Considerably less is known about the role of…
A uniform solidification front undergoes non-trivial deformations when encountering an insoluble dispersed particle in a melt. For solid particles, the overall deformation characteristics are primarily dictated by heat transfer between the…
Facetted growth of snow crystals leads to a rich diversity of forms, and exhibits a remarkable sixfold symmetry. Snow crystal structures result from diffusion limited crystal growth in the presence of anisotropic surface energy and…
The structural nature of high-density amorphous ice (HDA), which forms through low-temperature pressure-induced amorphization of the 'ordinary' ice I, is heavily debated. Clarifying this question is not only important for understanding the…