软凝聚态物质
The male fruit fly produces ~1.8 mm long sperm, thousands of which can be stored until mating in a ~200 micron sac, the seminal vesicle. While the evolutionary pressures driving such extreme sperm (flagellar) lengths have long been…
We introduce and study a class of active matter models in which we keep track of fuel (stored energy) consumption. They are by construction, thermodynamically consistent. Using these models it is possible for us to observe and follow how…
While hard-sphere models form the foundation of theoretical condensed matter physics, real systems often exhibit some degree of softness. We present a theoretical and numerical study of a class of nearly hard-sphere systems, generalized…
The work is devoted to the development of an information system ISANM that will be useful for teaching students and applicable in the work of engineers and researchers for automating the analysis of colloidal structure morphology. The ISANM…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…
Microphase separation is common in active biological systems as exemplified by the separation of RNA and DNA-rich phases in the cell nucleus driven by the transcriptional activity of polymerase enzymes acting similarly to amphiphiles in a…
Persistent motion of microswimmers near boundaries is known to result in surface accumulation. Recently it was shown experimentally that surface accumulation of microswimmers is impacted primarily by steric forces and short-ranged…
Polymersomes, vesicles self-assembled from amphiphilic polymers, are promising nanocarriers for the targeted intracellular delivery of therapeutics. Integrating inorganic light-absorbing materials with plasmonic properties, such as gold,…
Light carries energy and momentum. It can therefore alter the motion of objects from atomic to astronomical scales. Being widely available, readily controllable and broadly biocompatible, light is also an ideal tool to propel microscopic…
The early stiffening of fresh cement paste plays a key role in shaping and stability during casting and 3D printing. In Portland cement systems, this phenomenon arises from the formation of calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H), which stiffens…
Active fluids made of powered suspended particles have unique abilities to self-generate flow and density structures. How such dynamics can be triggered and leveraged by external cues is a key question of both biological and applied…
We investigate how the removal of a single bond affects the fracture behavior of triangular spring networks, whereby we systematically vary the position of the removed bond. Our simulations show that removing the bond has two contrasting…
We investigate the melting behavior of two-dimensional colloidal crystals stabilized by a core-softened potential featuring two competing interaction length scales. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we analyze three polymorphic solid…
Previous experiments and numerical simulations have revealed that a limited number of two- and three-dimensional particle systems contract in volume upon heating isobarically. This anomalous phenomenon is known as negative thermal expansion…
Granular materials are defined as collections of macroscopic dissipative particles. Although these systems are ubiquitous in our lives, the nature and the causes of their non-trivial collective dynamics still remain elusive and have…
Computational methods for designing interactions between colloidal particles that induce self-assembly have received much attention for their promise to discover tailored materials. However, it often remains a challenge to translate…
We study a disordered network of bistable bonds subjected to periodic strain. The model is inspired by experiments on crumpled sheets and it features behaviors associated with glasses, including a complex energy landscape, memories, and…
We study the dynamics of a circular passive inclusion, termed a torquer, in a bath of chiral active Brownian particles. Despite being geometrically symmetric and non-motile, the torquer exhibits persistent rotation due to spatially…
We numerically investigate hyperuniformity in two-dimensional frictionless jammed packings of bidisperse systems. Hyperuniformity is characterized by the suppression of density fluctuations at large length scales, and the structure factor…
This study presents a novel physics informed, data-driven modeling framework for capturing the strongly nonlinear thermo-viscoelastic behavior of soft materials exhibiting stress softening, with emphasis on the Mullins effect. Unlike…