Related papers: Local Melting and Drag for a Particle Driven Throu…
We report on a novel and flexible experiment to investigate the non-equilibrium melting behaviour of model crystals made from charged colloidal spheres. In a slit geometry polycrystalline material formed in a low salt region is driven by…
The mechanism of superconductivity caused by the electron-vibrational centres and their inherent oscillations in crystals and solid-state structures near room temperature and at higher temperatures - hyperconductivity is discussed and…
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…
We investigate the directional locking effects that arise when a monolayer of paramagnetic colloidal particles is driven across a triangular lattice of magnetic bubbles. We use an external rotating magnetic field to generate a two…
The primary distinction between solid and liquid phases is mechanical rigidity, with liquids having a disordered atomic structure that allows flow. While melting is a common phase transition, its microscopic mechanisms still remain unclear.…
Using numerical simulations we examine the velocity fluctuations of a probe particle driven with constant force through a two-dimensional disordered assembly of disks which has a well-defined jamming point J at a density of \phi_J=0.843. As…
We observe novel positional control of a colloidal particle in microchannel flow of a nematic liquid crystal. Lattice Boltzmann simulations show multiple equilibrium particle positions, the existence and position of which are tunable using…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
We present a mode locking (ML) phenomenon of vortex matter observed around the peak effect regime of 2H-NbSe$_2$ pure single crystals. The ML features allow us not only to trace how the shear rigidity of driven vortices persists on…
When ions move through solids, they interact with the solid's constituent atoms and cause them to vibrate around their equilibrium points. This vibration, in turn, modifies the potential landscape through which the mobile ions travel.…
Crystal defects crucially influence the properties of crystalline materials and have been extensively studied. Even for the simplest type of defect - the point defect - however, basic properties such as their diffusive behavior, and their…
The transport behavior of a system of gravitationally driven colloidal particles is investigated. The particle interactions are determined by the superparamagnetic behavior of the particles. They can thus be arranged in a crystalline order…
When captured by a flat nematic-isotropic interface, colloidal particles can be dragged by it. As a result spatially periodic structures may appear, with the period depending on a particle mass, size, and interface…
We review our studies of elastic lattices driven by an external force $F$ in the presence of random disorder, which correspond to the case of vortices in superconducting thin films driven by external currents. Above a critical force $F_c$…
We study colloidal particles in a nematic-liquid-crystal-filled microfluidic channel and show how elastic interactions between the particle and the channel wall lead to different particle dynamics compared with conventional microfluidics.…
Crystals melt when thermal excitations or the concentration of defects in the lattice is sufficiently high. Upon melting, the crystalline long-range order vanishes, turning the solid to a fluid. In contrast to this classical scenario of…
We demonstrate that particles confined to two dimensions (2d) and subjected to a one-dimensional (1d) periodic potential exhibit a rich phase diagram, with both ``locked floating solids'' and smectic phases. The resulting phases and phase…
The melting of elemental solids is modelled as a dislocation-mediated transition on a lattice. Statistical mechanics of linear defects is used to obtain a new relation between melting temperature, crystal structure, atomic volume, and shear…
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…
We study here how phase transitions are induced in colloidal suspensions by a point-like heat source, an optically trapped metal oxide particle absorbing light. We find that thermophoresis increases the number density of colloids around the…