Related papers: Soft and non-soft structural transitions in disord…
Deformations of amorphous polymer networks prepared with significant concentrations of liquid crystalline mesogens have been recently reported to undergo mechanotropic phase transitions. Here, we report that these mechanotropic phase…
We use an off - lattice bead - spring model of a self - avoiding polymer chain immersed in a 3-dimensional quenched random medium to study chain dynamics by means of a Monte - Carlo (MC) simulation. The chain center of mass mean-squared…
We study the evolution of structural disorder under cooling in supercooled liquids, focusing on covalent networks. We introduce a model for the energy of networks that incorporates weak non-covalent interactions. We show that at…
The yet virtually unexplored class of soft colloidal rods with small aspect ratio is investigated and shown to exhibit a very rich phase and dynamic behavior, spanning from liquid to nearly melt state. Instead of nematic order, these short…
Disordered spring networks are a useful paradigm to examine macroscopic mechanical properties of amorphous materials. Here, we study the elastic behavior of under-constrained spring networks, i.e.\ networks with more degrees of freedom than…
We propose a theoretical framework for dealing with a transient polymer network undergoing small deformations, based on the rate of breaking and re-forming of network crosslinks and the evolving elastic reference state. In this framework,…
Soft-mode turbulence (SMT) is the spatiotemporal chaos observed in homeotropically aligned nematic liquid crystals, where non-thermal fluctuations are induced by nonlinear coupling between the Nambu-Goldstone and convective modes. The net…
The elastic modulus $G$ of a polymer network depends notably on parameters such as the initial concentration of the monomers before the synthesis ($\rho_0$), the density of the cross-linker, or the topology of the network. Understanding how…
The simultaneous effect of both disorder and crystal-lattice pinning on the equilibrium behavior of oriented elastic objects is studied using scaling arguments and a functional renormalization group technique. Our analysis applies to…
The dynamics of randomly crosslinked liquids is addressed via a Rouse- and a Zimm-type model with crosslink statistics taken either from bond percolation or Erdoes-Renyi random graphs. While the Rouse-type model isolates the effects of the…
We investigate the effects of stealthy hyperuniform bond distributions on the electronic and magnetic properties of the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice. Hyperuniform structures, distinct from random and quasiperiodic ones, have…
We study the mechanics of nematically ordered semiflexible networks showing that they, like isotropic networks, undergo an affine to non-affine cross-over controlled by the ratio of the filament length to the non-affinity length. Deep in…
In a recent publication we established an analogy between the free energy of a hard sphere system and the energy of an elastic network [1]. This result enables one to study the free energy landscape of hard spheres, in particular to define…
Relaxor ferroelectrics are complex oxide materials which are rather unique to study the effects of compositional disorder on phase transitions. Here, we study the effects of quenched cubic random electric fields on the lattice instabilities…
A self-interacting polymer can undergo an orientational ordering transition, depending on the magnitude of the nematic interaction. The effect of embedding such a polymer into a flexible surface on this transition is studied on the…
Athermal models of disordered fibrous networks are highly useful for studying the mechanics of elastic networks composed of stiff biopolymers. The underlying network architecture is a key aspect that can affect the elastic properties of…
We study the equilibrium properties of an Ising model on a disordered random network where the disorder can be quenched or annealed. The network consists of four-fold coordinated sites connected via variable length one-dimensional chains.…
At zero temperature, spring networks with connectivity below Maxwell's isostatic threshold undergo a mechanical phase transition from a floppy state at small strains to a rigid state for applied shear strain above a critical strain…
Liquid crystalline networks (LCNs) are stimuli-responsive materials formed from polymeric chains cross-linked with rod-like mesogenic segments, which, in the nematic phase, align along a non-polar director. A key characteristic of these…
We investigate the influence of quenched disorder on the steady states of driven systems of the elastic interface with non-local hydrodynamic interactions. The generalized elastic model (GEM), which has been used to characterize numerous…