Related papers: Order and disorder in columnar joints
Biomolecules are often very long with a definite chirality. DNA, xanthan and poly-gamma-benzyl-glutamate (PBLG) can all form columnar crystalline phases. The chirality, however, competes with the tendency for crystalline order. For chiral…
The transition to turbulence is characterized by an abrupt loss of order and predictability, featuring the intermittent proliferation and decay of localized turbulent structures. En-route to becoming fully turbulent, surprisingly order…
Geometrically frustrated materials have a ground-state degeneracy that may be lifted by subtle effects, such as higher order interactions causing small energetic preferences for ordered structures. Alternatively, ordering may result from…
Solution-phase bottom up self-assembly of nanocrystals into superstructures such as ordered superlattices is an attractive strategy to generate functional materials of increasing complexity, including very recent advances that incorporate…
The pair interaction between two stiff parallel linear DNA molecules depends not only on the distance between their axes but on their azimuthal orientation. The positional and orientational order in columnar B-DNA assemblies in solution is…
In this work we derive conditions that predict the existence of two-phase periodic-pattern grain boundary structures that are stable against coarsening. While previous research has established that elastic effects can lead to phase pattern…
Three-dimensional molecular dynamics simulations of dissipative particles (~ 10^6) are carried out for studying the clustering kinetics of granular media during cooling. The inter-connected high particle density regions are identified,…
Ordered phases on curved substrates experience a complex interplay of ordering and intrinsic curvature, commonly producing frustration and singularities. This is an especially important issue in crystals as ever-smaller scale materials are…
We investigate by means of computer simulations the effect of structural disorder on the statistics of cracking for a thin layer of material under uniform and isotropic drying. The layer is discretized into a triangular lattice of springs.…
We develop a theoretical description of the topological disentanglement occurring when torus knots reach the ends of a semi-flexible polymer under tension. These include decays into simpler knots and total unknotting. The minimal number of…
Outcrops of columnar joints made of solidified lava flows are often covered by semi-ordered polygonal cracks. The polygon diameters are fairly uniform at each outcrop, but their shapes largely vary in the number of sides and internal…
We consider two (off-lattice) varieties of out-of-equilibrium systems, viz., granular and active matter systems, that, in addition to displaying velocity ordering, exhibit fascinating pattern formation in the density field, similar to those…
We examine the changeover in the particle configurations and the dynamics in dense Lennard-Jones binary mixtures composed of small and large particles. By varying the composition at a low temperature, we realize crystal with defects,…
Structural cellular materials in nature, such as wood, trabecular bone, corals, and dentin combine complex biological functions with structural roles, such as skeletal support and impact protection1,2. They feature complex structural…
The Helfrich-Hurault (HH) elastic instability is a well-known mechanism behind patterns that form as a result of strain upon liquid crystal systems with periodic ground states. In the HH model, layered structures undulate and buckle in…
In geometrically frustrated magnetic systems, weak interactions or slight changes to the structure can tip the delicate balance of exchange interactions, sending the system into a different ground state. Brochantite, Cu$_4$SO$_4$(OH)$_6$,…
The study of deterministic chaos continues to be one of the important problems in the field of nonlinear dynamics. Interest in the study of chaos exists both in low-dimensional dynamical systems and in large ensembles of coupled…
We study the impact of an external alignment field on the structure formation and polarization behavior of low-density dipolar active particles in three dimensions. Performing extensive Brownian dynamics simulations, we characterize the…
A phase diagram for a one dimensional fiber bundle model is constructed with a continuous variation in two parameters guiding dynamics of the model: strength of disorder and system size. We monitor the successive events of fiber rupture in…
Self-organized monolayers of highly flexible \Frechet dendrons were deposited on graphite surfaces by solution casting. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) reveals an unprecedented variety of patterns with up to seven stable hierarchical…