Related papers: Entropically-Stabilized Self-Compactification in M…
We study the self-assembly of branching-chain networks and crystals in a binary colloidal system with tunable interactions. The particle positions are extracted from microscope images and order parameters are extracted by image processing…
Suspensions of colloidal microplates in contoured 2D elastic fluids sheets are dominated by the bending mechanics and shear rigidity of the plates and the contrasting in-plane shear flow of the 2D fluid. Using the phase separated…
We propose a new strategy to improve the self-assembly properties of DNA-functionalised colloids. The problem that we address is that DNA-functionalised colloids typically crystallize in a narrow temperature window, if at all. The…
We consider a coarse-grained description of a system of self-propelled particles given by hydrodynamic equations for the density and polarization fields. We find that the ordered moving or flocking state of the system is unstable to spatial…
We observe the spontaneous onset of three-dimensional motion from a quiescent, purely conductive state of a stably stratified fluid in a V-shaped enclosure heated from below, which ultimately self-organizes into a two-dimensional steady…
Thermal fluctuations constantly and evenly excite all vibrational modes in an equilibrium crystal. As the temperature rises, these fluctuations promote the formation of defects and eventually melting. In active solids, the self-propulsion…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
Phase transitions induced by short optical pulses is a new mainstream in studies of cooperative electronic states. Its special realization in systems with neutral-ionic transformations stands out in a way that the optical pumping goes to…
Here we provide a theoretical framework to analyze discrete time-crystalline phases (DTC) in open quantum many-body systems. As a particular realization, we choose a quantum many-body system that exhibits cascaded prethermalization . The…
The self-assembly of submerged cold-plasma-treated polyethylene beads is reported. The plasma-treated immersed millimetrically-sized polyethylene beads formed well-ordered 2D quasi-crystalline structures. The submerged floating of light…
We demonstrate a simple method by which time-dependent interactions can be exploited to improve self-assembly in colloidal systems. We apply this method to two systems: a model colloid with short-ranged attractive potentials that undergoes…
We review various methods to investigate the statics and the dynamics of collective composition fluctuations in dense polymer mixtures within fluctuating-field approaches. The central idea of fluctuating-field theories is to rewrite the…
We study the self-assembly of colloidal microgel particles at a quasi-two-dimensional air-water interface of a drying droplet. Using bright-field microscopy, we demonstrate that increasing particle elasticity drives interfacial organization…
The self-assembly of DNA-coated colloids controlled by enzymatic reactions has the potential to enable the formation of materials with hierarchical organization and switchable configurations. However, the problem of designing such…
Recent experimental investigations into Hydra regeneration revealed a remarkable phenomenon: the morphological transformation of a tissue fragment from the incipient spherical configuration to a tube-like structure - the hallmark of a…
Many thermodynamic instabilities in one dimension (e.g. DNA thermal denaturation, wetting of interfaces) can be described in terms of simple models involving harmonic coupling between nearest neighbors and an asymmetric on-site potential…
Crystals with low latent heat are predicted to melt from an entropically stabilized body-centered cubic symmetry. At this weakly first-order transition, strongly correlated fluctuations are expected to emerge, which could change the nature…
We present adaptive finite element simulations of dendritic and eutectic solidification in binary and ternary alloys. The computations are based on a recently formulated phase-field model that is especially appropriate for modelling…
We analyze the structural behavior of a single polymer chain grafted to an attractive, flexible surface. Our model is composed of a coarse-grained bead-and-spring polymer and a tethered membrane. By means of extensive parallel tempering…
The emergence upon cooling of an ordered solid phase from a liquid is a remarkable example of self-assembly, which has also major practical relevance. Here, we use a recently developed committor-based enhanced sampling method [Kang et al.,…