Related papers: Nature of vibrational eigenmodes in topologically …
By molecular-dynamics simulations, we have studied the devitrification (or crystallization) of aged hard-sphere glasses. First, we find that the dynamics of the particles are intermittent: Quiescent periods, when the particles simply…
Topological defects in active liquid crystals can be confined by introducing gradients of activity. Here, we examine the dynamical behavior of two defects confined by a sharp gradient of activity that separates an active circular region and…
Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…
The local structure study reveals important aspects of the physical properties, because it is closely related to the electronic structure. Standard crystallographic analysis based on a space group fails to observe disorder in the crystal…
We report the first large scale molecular dynamics simulations of the effect of the photoisomerization of probe molecules on the dynamics of a glassy molecular material. We show that the photoisomerization of the probe molecules induces the…
The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
We introduce an algorithm that constructs disordered mass-spring networks whose elastic properties mimic that of glasses by tuning the fluctuations of the local elastic properties, keeping fixed connectivity and controlling the prestress.…
The vibrational spectra of solids, both ordered and amorphous, in the low-energy regime, control the thermal and transport properties of materials, from heat capacity to heat conduction, electron-phonon couplings, conventional…
We explore the impact of weak disorder on the dynamics of classical particles in a periodically oscillating lattice. It is demonstrated that the disorder induces a hopping process from diffusive to regular motion i.e. we observe the…
Glasses have a large excess of low-frequency vibrational modes in comparison with most crystalline solids. We show that such a feature is a necessary consequence of the weak connectivity of the solid, and that the frequency of modes in…
We use a fully quantum mechanical approach to demonstrate control of plasmonic excitations in prototype models of topological insulators by molecule-scale perturbations. Strongly localized surface plasmons are present in the host systems,…
The physics of glasses can be studied from many viewpoints, from material scientists interested in the development of new materials to statistical physicists inventing new theoretical tools to deal with disordered systems. In these lectures…
The autocorrelation function of pattern fluctuation is used to study soft-mode turbulence (SMT), a spatiotemporal chaos observed in homeotropic nematics. We show that relaxation near the electroconvection threshold deviates from the…
A theoretical treatment of deeply supercooled liquids is difficult because their properties emerge from spatial inhomogeneities that are self-induced, transient, and nanoscopic. I use computer simulations to analyse self-induced static and…
We study heterogeneities in a binary Lennard-Jones system below the glass transition using molecular dynamics simulations. We identify mobile and immobile particles and measure their distribution of vibrational amplitudes. For temperatures…
The effects of disorder on the robustness of topological magnon states of two-dimensional ferromagnetic skyrmions is investigated. It is diagnosed by evaluating a real space topological invariant, the bosonic Bott index (BI). The disorder…
We poorly understand the properties of amorphous systems at small length scales, where a continuous elastic description breaks down. This is apparent when one considers their vibrational and transport properties, or the way forces propagate…
Atomic vibrations in perfect, slightly defective or mixed crystals are to a large extent well understood since many decades. Theoretical descriptions are thus in excellent agreement with the experiments. As a consequence, phonon-related…
Recent experiments show a strong rotational-diffusion enhancement for self-propelled microrheological probes in colloidal glasses. Here, we provide microscopic understanding using simulations with a frictional probe-medium coupling that…