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Helical structures, almost ubiquitous in biological systems, have inspired the design and manufacturing of helical devices with applications in nanoelecromechanical systems (NEMS), morphing structures, optoelectronics, micro-robotics and…
Patterns and forms adopted by Nature, such as the shape of living cells, the geometry of shells and the branched structure of plants, are often the result of simple dynamical paradigms. Here we show that a growing self-interacting string…
Densely-packed bundles of biological filaments (filamentous proteins) are common and critical structural elements in range of biological materials. While most bundles form from intrinsically straight filaments, there are notable examples of…
Soft elastic filaments that can be stretched, bent and twisted exhibit a range of topologically and geometrically complex morphologies that include plectonemes, solenoids, knot-like and braid-like structures. We combine numerical…
Helical ribbons arise in many biological and engineered systems, often driven by anisotropic surface stress, residual strain, and geometric or elastic mismatch between layers of a laminated composite. A full mathematical analysis is…
We investigate morphologies of semiflexible polymer rings, such as circular DNA, which are adsorbed onto topographically or chemically structured substrate surfaces. We classify all equilibrium morphologies for two striped surface…
Freestanding tubular crystals offer a general description of crystalline order on deformable surfaces with cylindrical topology, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, microtubules, and recently reported colloidal assemblies. These systems…
This review presents recent progress in understanding constraints and consequences of close-packing geometry of filamentous or columnar materials possessing non-trivial textures, focusing in particular on the common motifs of twisted and…
Helices are the quintessential geometric motif of the microscale, from alpha-helices in proteins to double helices in DNA. Assembly of the helical geometry of biopolymers is a foundational step in a hierarchy of structure that eventually…
We theoretically study the conformations of a helical semi-flexible filament confined to a flat surface. This squeezed helix exhibits a variety of unexpected shapes resembling circles, waves or spirals depending on the material parameters.…
We survey interactions between the topology and the combinatorics of complex hyperplane arrangements. Without claiming to be exhaustive, we examine in this setting combinatorial aspects of fundamental groups, associated graded Lie algebras,…
A common trait of complex systems is that they can be represented by means of a network of interacting parts. It is, in fact, the network organisation (more than the parts) what largely conditions most higher-level properties, which are not…
The shape assumed by a slender elastic structure is a function both of the geometry of the space in which it exists and the forces it experiences. We explore by experiments and theoretical analysis, the morphological phase-space of a…
Biomolecular structures are assemblies of emergent anisotropic building modules such as uniaxial helices or biaxial strands. We provide an approach to understanding a marginally compact phase of matter that is occupied by proteins and DNA.…
This study investigates the probability of threading in star catenanes under good solvent conditions using molecular dynamics simulations, emphasizing the influence of ring rigidity. Threading in these systems arises from the interplay…
Recent experiments have elucidated the physical properties of kinetoplasts, which are chain-mail-like structures found in the mitochondria of trypanosome parasites formed from catenated DNA rings. Inspired by these studies, we use Monte…
The functionality of proteins is related to their structure in the native state. Protein structures are made up of emergent building blocks of helices and almost planar sheets. A simple coarse-grained geometrical model of a flexible tube…
Via large-scale molecular dynamics simulations, we observe the melting of a topological glass of stiff ring polymers by incorporating flexible ring polymers, along an isobaric path. As more flexible ring polymers are introduced, cluster…
By means of sophisticated Monte Carlo methods, we investigate the conformational phase diagram of a simple model for flexible polymers with explicit thickness. The thickness constraint, which is introduced geometrically via the global…
Bending the edge of a thin elastic material promotes rigidity far from its clamped boundary. However, this curvature-induced rigidity can be overwhelmed by gravity or other external loading, resulting in elastic buckling and large…