软凝聚态物质
Osmotic pressure is the driving force for the swelling of hydrogels. The hydrogel osmotic pressure can be decomposed into two parts: the mixing part due to polymer-solvent interaction and the elastic part due to polymer chain stretching.…
Diffusion-driven patterns appear on curved surfaces in many settings, initiated by unstable modes of an underlying Laplacian operator. On a flat surface or perfect sphere, the patterns are degenerate, reflecting translational/rotational…
One of the most fundamental quests in the physics of active matter concerns the existence of a comprehensive theory for its macroscopic properties, i.e. an ``active thermodynamics''. Here, we derive and experimentally verify key elements of…
For nearly a century, introduction of nanoparticles to elastomers has yielded extraordinarily tough nanocomposites that are critical to technologies from actuators to tires. The mechanisms by which this reinforcement occurs have…
Rheological properties of chiral active materials have been an important area of research in the recent past, in particular regarding odd terms in their mechanical response. While much progress has been made in the study of odd viscous…
Liquid coolants containing conductive nanoparticles (nanofluids) have been widely studied over the past 30 years but have seen limited adoption in real-world cooling applications. The ability of passive nanoparticles to enhance heat…
We present experiments on chiral active polar particles, realized as vibrated granular rods, revealing the formation of robust ``skipping orbits'' at hard boundaries. These edge states exhibit a net circulation opposite to the particles'…
Electronic electro-optic (EEO) phase modulation is a key emerging technology for the chip-scale inter-conversion of signals between the electronic and photonic domains. The recent discovery of the ferroelectric nematic ($N_F$) liquid…
The shape of biological shells, such as cell nuclei, membranes, and vesicles, often deviates from a perfect sphere due to an interplay of complex interactions with a myriad of molecular structures. In particular, semiflexible biopolymers…
We demonstrate for the first time that a lateral impulse experienced by a granular channel can induce an inertial bulk dilation over long distances across a granular medium with a mechanically free surface. The surface dilation requires…
For two-patch particles in two dimensions, we find that the coupling of anisotropic patchy interactions and the triangular lattice leads to novel phase behaviors. For asymmetric patch-patch (PP) and nonpatch-nonpatch (NN) interactions, the…
We investigate the low-energy configurations of N mutually repelling charges confined to a spherical cap and interacting via the Coulomb potential. In the continuum limit, this problem was solved by Lord Kelvin, who found a non-uniform…
This study investigates the influence of chirality, viscous effects, and confinement geometry on the flow dynamics and defect structures of cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) using numerical simulations. As chiral strength increases,…
In recent years the Swap Monte Carlo algorithm has led to remarkable progress in equilibrating supercooled model liquids at low temperatures. Applications have so far been limited to systems composed of spherical particles, however, whereas…
Fluid imbibition into porous media featuring nanopores is ubiquitous in applications such as oil recovery from unconventional reservoirs and material processing. While the imbibition of pure fluids has been extensively studied, the…
Inspired by recent experiments, we present a phase-field model of microphase separation in an elastomer swollen with a solvent. The imbalance between the molecular scale of demixing and the mesoscopic scale beyond which elasticity operates…
Enhancing the mechanical properties of amorphous solids is crucial for material design, with microalloying being a common but not well-understood method. Using extensive molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate the effect of impurity…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Effective interactions inherently encompass many-body effects that appear unified. Analyzing these in reverse, that is, separating them into contributions from pairs, triples, or larger groups, is typically intricate and seldom pursued.…
We formulate a method for predicting peak particle forces in a Solitary Wave (SW) wavefront within a randomly filled 3D granular channel. The SW in our simulation are driven by a sustained impact originating in the bumpy floor of the…