Related papers: Solid-liquid phase coexistence and structural tran…
We use molecular simulation to study the structural and dynamic properties of glassy nanoclusters formed both through the direct condensation of the vapor below the glass transition temperature, without the presence of a substrate, and…
During the last half-decade, a new class of ferroic-fluid, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals (NFLCs), creates a noise owing to its exceptional properties such as a colossal polarization, high electro-optic activity plus high fluidity.…
A new model that describes adsorption and clustering of particles on a surface is introduced. A {\it clustering} transition is found which separates between a phase of weakly correlated particle distributions and a phase of strongly…
We review how phase-field models contributed to the understanding of various aspects of crystal nucleation including homogeneous and heterogeneous processes, and their role in microstructure evolution. We recall results obtained both by the…
The liquid-gas transition in free atomic clusters is investigated theoretically based on simple unimolecular rate theories and assuming sequential evaporations. A kinetic Monte Carlo scheme is used to compute the time-dependent properties…
We study colloidal particle dynamics of a model glass system using confocal and fluorescence microscopy as the sample evolves from a hard-sphere glass to a liquid with attractive interparticle interactions. The transition from hard-sphere…
We present an extensive but concise review of our present understanding, largely based on theory and simulation work from our group, on the equilibrium behavior of solid surfaces and nanosystems close to the bulk melting point. In the first…
Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…
The ground state of a two-dimensional, harmonically confined mesoscopic assembly of up to thirty polar molecules is studied by computer simulations. As the strength of the confining trap is increased, clusters evolve from superfluid, to…
The effect of polydispersity on the freezing transition of hard spheres is examined within a moment description. At low polydispersities a single fluid-to-crystal transition is recovered. With increasing polydispersity we find a density…
We study the relationship between local structural ordering and dynamical heterogeneities in a model glass-forming liquid, the Wahnstrom mixture. A novel cluster-based approach is used to detect local energy minimum polyhedral clusters and…
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…
The intrinsic nature of glass states or glass transitions has been a mystery for a long time. Recently, more and more studies tend to show that a glass locates at a specific potential energy landscape (PEL). To explore how the flatness of…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
Structural transitions in melts as well as their dynamics are considered. It is supposed that liquid represents the solution of relatively stable solid-like locally favored structures (LFS) in the surrounding of disordered normal-liquid…
A young open cluster is a 2-phase system: an ensemble of stars move in a gaseous medium (the mother molecular cloud). The dynamics and thermodynamics of the system, and so its evolution and final fate (is it stable or unstable?), strongly…
Using a coarse molecular-dynamics (CMD) approach with an appropriate choice of coarse variable (order parameter), we map the underlying effective free-energy landscape for the melting of a crystalline solid. Implementation of this approach…
By the Wolff's cluster Monte Carlo simulations and numerical minimization within a mean field approach, we study the low temperature phase diagram of water, adopting a cell model that reproduces the known properties of water in its fluid…
We consider a Hamiltonian system made of $N$ classical particles moving in two dimensions, coupled via an {\it infinite-range interaction} gauged by a parameter $A$. This system shows a low energy phase with most of the particles trapped in…
It is difficult to derive the solid--fluid transition from microscopic models. We introduce particle systems whose potentials do not decay with distance and calculate their partition function exactly using a method similar to that for…