Related papers: Modelling the atomic structure of very high-densit…
Experiments and computer simulations of the transformations of amorphous ices display different behavior depending on sample preparation methods, and on the rates of change of temperature and pressure to which samples are subjected. In…
We present a new method for modeling disordered solid solutions, based on the virtual crystal approximation (VCA). The VCA is a tractable way of studying configurationally disordered systems; traditionally, the potentials which represent…
Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…
Low-density amorphous ice (LDA) is one of the most common solid materials in the Universe and a key material for understanding the many famous anomalies of liquid water. Yet, despite its significance and its discovery dating nearly 90…
We study the phase behavior of hard spheres confined between two parallel hard plates using extensive computer simulations. We determine the full equilibrium phase diagram for arbitrary densities and plate separations from one to five…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…
We propose three new phases of H2O under ultrahigh pressure. Our structural search was performed using an adaptive genetic algorithm which allows an extensive exploration of crystal structure. The new sequence of pressure-induced…
The selection of stacking order in a broad range of close-packed polymorphic materials remains a challenging enigma. Using in situ cryogenic transmission electron microscopy, we uncover the atomistic mechanisms governing the vapour…
The structure and properties of water or ice are of great interest to researchers due to their importance in the biological, cryopreservation and environmental fields. Hexagonal ice (Ih) is a common ice phase in nature and has been…
Water's phase diagram displays enormous complexity with currently 17 experimentally-confirmed polymorphs of ice and several more predicted computationally. For almost 120 years, it has been a stomping ground for scientific discovery and ice…
The phase diagram of water harbours many mysteries: some of the phase boundaries are fuzzy, and the set of known stable phases may not be complete. Starting from liquid water and a comprehensive set of 50 ice structures, we compute the…
We study an experimental system of hard granular squares in two dimensions, energized by vibration. The interplay of order in the orientations and positions of anisotropic particles allows for a rich set of phases. We measure the structure…
In this work, we provide mechanistic insight into the initial stages of formation of ice across the limit of stability of supercooled water. Such an analysis is particularly important since crystal nucleation is not a relevant mechanism…
We identify the possibility of realizing higher order topological (HOT) phases in noncrystalline or amorphous materials. Starting from two and three dimensional crystalline HOT insulators, accommodating topological corner states, we…
Quantifying the configuration space and the Gibbs measure of thermally disordered condensed matter systems has been a long standing problem. The challenge is to avoid the Gibbs paradox, which forbids any ordering or labeling of the atoms.…
We computed the phase diagram for a system of model anisotropic particles with six attractive patches in an octahedral arrangement. We chose to study this model for a relatively narrow value of the patch width where the lowest-energy…
Polar mesospheric clouds provide clues to physicochemical processes in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. However, the heterogeneous nucleation and growth processes of water ice under polar mesospheric conditions are poorly understood,…
Herein, fundamentals of topology and symmetry breaking are used to understand crystallization and geometrical frustration in topologically close-packed structures. This frames solidification from a new perspective that is unique from…
We report on thermodynamic and optical measurements of the condensation process of $^4$He in two silica aerogels of same porosity 95%, but different microstructures resulting from different pH during synthesis. For a base-catalyzed aerogel,…
The structure of the recently identified metastable ice XVII, obtained by release of hydrogen from the C$_0$ D$_2$O-H$_2$ compound (filled ice), has been accurately measured by neutron powder diffraction. The diffraction pattern is indexed…