Related papers: Spinodal-assisted crystallization in polymer melts
I develop a kinetic mechanism to explain chain folding in polymer crystallization which is based on the competition between the formation of stems, which is due to frequent occupations of trans states along the chains in the supercooled…
Stability of coarse particles against gravity is an important issue in dense suspensions (fresh concrete, foodstuff, etc.). On the one hand, it is known that they are stable at rest when the interstitial paste has a high enough yield…
Colloidal model systems allow studying crystallization kinetics under fairly ideal conditions with rather well characterized pair interactions and minimized external influences. In complementary approaches therefore experiment, analytic…
We analyze the behavior of a suspension of active polar particles under shear. In the absence of external forces, orientationally ordered active particles are known to exhibit a transition to a state of non-uniform polarization and…
When a disordered solid is sheared, yielding is followed by the onset of intermittent response that is characterized by slip in local regions usually labeled shear-transformation zones (STZ). Such intermittent response resembles the…
Active-elastic instabilities are common phenomena in the natural world which have the aspect of sudden mechanical morphings. Frequently, the driving force of the instability mechanisms has a chemo-mechanical nature which makes these kind of…
Polymer crystallization is a process of great interest in both fundamental theory and industrial settings, particularly in polymer processing and applications involving semi-crystalline materials. The effect of processing on the initial…
Ionic liquids have generated interest in applications as lubricants and as additives to conventional lubricants due to their unique physical properties. In these applications, the liquid thin film can be subjected simultaneously to…
We report small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments on aqueous dispersions of colloidal silica with a broad monomodal size distribution (polydispersity 18%, size 8 nm). Over a range of volume fractions the silica particles segregate…
We study the dynamics of an ideal polymer chain in a crowded, viscoelastic medium and in the presence of active forces. The motion of the centre of mass and of individual monomers is calculated. On time scales that are comparable to the…
Usually, we expect large particles to sediment faster than small of the same material. Contrary to this intuition, we report a dynamical competition between sedimentation and phase ordering which leads to smaller particles settling faster…
Within the Oseen-Frank theory we derive numerically exact solutions for axisymmetric localized states in chiral liquid crystal layers with homeotropic anchoring. These solutions describe recently observed two-dimensional skyrmions in…
Bifurcations in kinetic pathways decide the evolution of a system. An example is crystallization, in which the thermodynamically stable polymorph may not form due to kinetic hindrance. Here, we use confined self-assembly to investigate the…
The stability-limit conjecture (SLC) proposes that the liquid spinodal of water returns to positive pressure in the supercooled region, and that the apparent divergence of water's thermodynamic response functions as temperature decreases…
We develop the scaled particle theory to describe the thermodynamic properties and orientation ordering of a binary mixture of hard spheres (HS) and hard spherocylinders (HSC) confined in a disordered porous medium. Using this theory the…
We use computer simulations to study the morphology and rheological properties of a bidimensional emulsion resulting from a mixture of a passive isotropic fluid and an active contractile polar gel, in the presence of a surfactant that…
We present experimental results for spinodal decomposition in polymer mixtures of gelatin and dextran. The domain growth law is found to be consistent with t^1/4-growth over extended time-regimes. Similar results are obtained from lattice…
We visualize entanglements in polymer melts using molecular dynamics simulation. A bead at an entanglement interacts persistently for long times with the non-bonded beads (those excluding the adjacent ones in the same chain). The…
How thousands of microtubules and molecular motors self-organize into spindles remains poorly understood. By combining static, nanometer-resolution, large-scale electron tomography reconstructions and dynamic, optical-resolution, polarized…
Based upon kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of crystallization in a simple polymer model we present a new picture of the mechanism by which the thickness of lamellar polymer crystals is constrained to a value close to the minimum…