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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…
Borosilicones (e.g., Silly Putty) have been known for 70 years, but their peculiar behaviors have remain unexplained. In this work, experiment and theory are used to show that they are network liquids---dynamic macromolecules that appear…
We study analytically the intricate phase behavior of cross-linked $AB$ diblock copolymer melts, which can undergo two main phase transitions due to quenched random constraints: Gelation, i.e., spatially random localization of polymers…
Using large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations of lattice bosonic models, we precisely investigate the effect of weak Josephson tunneling between 2D superfluid or superconducting layers. In the clean case, the Kosterlitz-Thouless…
Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell's motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbors, leading to glassy dynamics.…
This perspective article reviews arguments that glass-forming liquids are different from those of standard liquid-state theory, which typically have a viscosity in the mPa$\cdot$s range and relaxation times of order picoseconds. These…
The discovery of ultrastable glasses has raised novel challenges about glassy systems. Recent experiments studied the macroscopic devitrification of ultrastable glasses into liquids upon heating but lacked microscopic resolution. We use…
Ultrasoft colloids typically do not spontaneously crystallize, but rather vitrify, at high concentrations. Combining in-situ rheo-SANS experiments and numerical simulations we show that shear facilitates crystallization of colloidal star…
A characteristic property of many soft matter systems is an ultrasoft effective interaction between their structural units. This softness often leads to complex behavior. In particular, ultrasoft systems under pressure demonstrate…
Strong changes in bulk properties, such as modulus and viscosity, are observed near the glass transition temperature, T_{g}, of amorphous materials. For more than a century, intense efforts have been made to define a microscopic origin for…
In supercooled liquids, vitrification generally suppresses crystallization. Yet some glasses can still crystallize despite the arrest of diffusive motion. This ill-understood process may limit the stability of glasses, but its microscopic…
The advent of two-dimensional (2D) crystals has led to numerous scientific breakthroughs. Conventional 2D systems have in-plane covalent bonds and a weak out-of-plane van-der-Waals bond. Here we report a new type of 2D material composed of…
We monitor the transformation of a liquid into an amorphous solid in simulations of a glass forming liquid by measuring the variation of a structural order parameter with either changing temperature or potential energy to establish the…
Elastomers are artificial polymeric materials created for industrial and commercial applications. Depending on their purpose, they are performing in different species and structure modifications. Our studies focus on the systems of…
Assemblies of purely repulsive and frictionless particles, such as emulsions or hard spheres, display very curious properties near their jamming transition, which occurs at the random close packing for mono-disperse spheres. Although such…
Understanding glass formation is a challenge because the existence of a true glass state, distinct from liquid and solid, remains elusive: Glasses are liquids that have become too viscous to flow. An old idea, as yet unproven…
We study a two-dimensional granular system where external driving force is applied to each particle in the system in such a way that the system is driven into a steady state by balancing the energy input and the dissipation due to inelastic…
When liquid-crystalline elastomers pass through the isotropic-nematic transition, the orientational order parameter and the elastic strain vary rapidly but smoothly, without the expected first-order discontinuity. This broadening of the…
Apparent critical phenomena, typically indicated by growing correlation lengths and dynamical slowing-down, are ubiquitous in non-equilibrium systems such as supercooled liquids, amorphous solids, active matter and spin glasses. It is often…
Nanoscale topographic features of solid surfaces can induce complex metastable behavior in colloidal and multiphase systems. Recent studies on single microparticle adsorption at liquid interfaces have reported a crossover from fast…