Related papers: Can liquid metal surfaces have hexatic order?
According to the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young (KTHNY) theory, the transition from a solid to liquid in two dimensions proceeds through an orientationally ordered liquid-like hexatic phase. However, alternative mixed melting…
The alignment of permanent dipole moments and the resulting spontaneous orientation polarization (SOP) is commonly observed in evaporated neat films of polar organic molecules and leads to a so-called giant surface potential. In case of…
The hexatic fluid refers to a phase in between a solid and a liquid which has short range positional order but quasi-long range orientational order. In the celebrated theory of Berezinskii, Kosterlitz and Thouless and subsequently refined…
Recent computational studies have reported evidence of a metastable liquid-liquid phase transition (LLPT) in molecular models of water under deeply supercooled conditions. A competing hypothesis suggests, however, that non-equilibrium…
We use a series of molecular dynamics simulations, and analytical theory, to demonstrate that a system of hard spheres confined to a narrow cylindrical channel exhibits a continuous phase transition from an isotropic fluid at low densities,…
To enlighten the nature of the order-disorder and order-order transitions in block copolymer melts confined in narrow capillaries we analyze peculiarities of the conventional Landau weak crystallization theory of systems confined to…
We present an x-ray study of liquid crystal membranes in the vicinity of hexatic-smectic phase transition by means of angular x-ray cross-correlation analysis (XCCA). By applying two-point angular intensity cross-correlation functions to…
Surface-induced profiles of both nematic and smectic order parameters in a nematic liquid crystal, ranging from an orienting substrate to "infinity", were evaluated numerically on base of an extended Landau theory. In order to obtain a…
We report on the results of molecular dynamics simulation (MD) studies of the classical two-dimensional electron crystal in the presence disorder. Our study is motivated by recent experiments on this system in modulation doped semiconductor…
Supercooled liquids exhibit spatial heterogeneity in the dynamics of their fluctuating atomic arrangements. The length and time scales of the heterogeneous dynamics are central to the glass transition and influence nucleation and growth of…
We have used an extended Scaled-Particle Theory that incorporates four-body correlations through the fourth-order virial coefficient to analyse the orientational properties of a fluid of hard right-angle triangles. This fluid has been…
The phase-ordering kinetics of a bulk uniaxial nematic liquid crystal is addressed using techniques that have been successfully applied to describe ordering in the O(n) model. The method involves constructing an appropriate mapping between…
By the adoption of a quaternion orientational order parameter to describe solidification, the topological origins of the thermal transport properties of crystalline and non-crystalline solid states are considered herein. Global…
Melting in two spatial dimensions, as realized in thin films or at interfaces, represents one of the most fascinating phase transitions in nature, but it remains poorly understood. Even for the fundamental hard-disk model, the melting…
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…
We characterize the order-disorder transition in a model lipid bilayer using molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the ordered phase is hexatic. In particular, in-plane structures possess a finite concentration of 5-7 disclination…
How condensed-matter simulations depend on the number of molecules being simulated ($N$) is sometimes itself a valuable piece of information. Liquid crystals provide a case in point. Light scattering and $2d$-IR experiments on…
Experimental and theoretical studies of a smectic-hexatic transition in freely suspended films of 54COOBC compound are presented. X-ray investigations revealed a discontinuous first-order transition into the hexatic phase. Moreover, the…
The process of homogeneous crystal nucleation has been considered in a model liquid, where the interparticle interaction is described by a short-range spherical oscillatory potential. Mechanisms of initiating structural ordering in the…
Addressing the nature of an unexpected smectic-A' phase in liquid crystal 54COOBC films, we perform large scale Monte Carlo simulations of a coupled hexatic-nematic XY model. The resulting finite-temperature phase diagram reveals a small…