Related papers: Heterogeneous diffusion in a reversible gel
In the wake of previous studies on the rattling-and-jumping diffusion in smectic liquid crystal phases of colloidal rods, we analyze here for the first time the heterogeneous dynamics in columnar phases. More specifically, we perform…
We present a first-principles formalism for studying dynamical heterogeneities in glass forming liquids. Based on the Non-Equilibrium Self-Consistent Generalized Langevin Equation theory, we were able to describe the time-dependent local…
We numerically study a simple model for thermo-reversible colloidal gelation in which particles can form reversible bonds with a predefined maximum number of neighbors. We focus on three and four maximally coordinated particles, since in…
We examine the phenomenon of dynamical heterogeneity in computer simulations of an equilibrium, glass-forming liquid. We describe several approaches to quantify the spatial correlation of single-particle motion, and show that spatial…
Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate the structural and dynamical properties of a simple model for a colloidal gel at low volume fraction. We find that at low T the system is forming an open percolating cluster,…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to study the formation of a physical (thermoreversible) gel by amphiphilic A-B-A triblock copolymers in aqueous solution. In order to mimic the structure of hydrogel-forming polypeptides…
Dynamical heterogeneities have been introduced in the context of the glass transition of molecular liquids and the lengthscale associated with them has been argued to be at the origin of the observed quasi-universal behaviour of glassy…
The non-equilibrium relaxational properties of a three dimensional Coulomb glass model are investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Our results suggest a transition from stationary to non-stationary dynamics at the equilibrium glass…
Over times shorter than that required for relaxation of enthalpy, a liquid can exhibit striking heterogeneities. The picture of these heterogeneities is complex with transient patches of rigidity, irregular yet persistent, intersected by…
We propose a thermodynamically consistent general-purpose model describing diffusion of a solute or a fluid in a solid undergoing possible phase transformations and damage, beside possible visco-inelastic processes. Also heat…
Dynamic heterogeneity in glass-formers has been related to their static structure using the concept of dynamic propensity. We re-examine this relationship by analyzing dynamical fluctuations in two atomistic glass-formers and two…
We study the role of elasticity-induced facilitation on the dynamics of glass-forming liquids by a coarse-grained two-dimensional model in which local relaxation events, taking place by thermal activation, can trigger new relaxations by…
We introduce the ideal Gaussian glass-forming system as a model to describe the thermodynamics and dynamics of supercooled liquids on a local scale in terms of the properties of the potential energy landscape (PEL). The first ingredient is…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
Elastic microphase separation refers to equilibrium patterns that form by phase separation in elastic gels. Recent experiments revealed a continuous phase transition from the homogeneous phase to a regularly patterned phase, whose period…
Water evaporation is critically important for hydrogels in open-air applications, but theoretically modeling is difficult due to the complicated intermolecular interactions and sustained deformation. In this work, we construct a simplified…
We use computer simulations to study the microscopic dynamics of an athermal assembly of soft particles near the fluid-to-solid, jamming transition. Borrowing tools developed to study dynamic heterogeneity near glass transitions, we…
We study a kinetically constrained lattice glass model in which continuous local densities are randomly redistributed on neighbouring sites with a kinetic constraint that inhibits the process at high densities, and a random bias accounting…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
Colloidal gels are out-of-equilibrium structures, made up of a rarefied network of colloidal particles. Comparing experiments to numerical simulations, with hydrodynamic interactions switched off, we demonstrate the crucial role of the…