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Tunable self-assembly driven by external electric or magnetic fields is of significant interest in modern soft matter physics. While extensively studied in two-dimensional systems, it remains insufficiently explored in three-dimensional systems. In this study, we investigated the formation of vertical strings from an initial monolayer system of particles deposited on a horizontal substrate under the influence of an external magnetic field using experiments, computer simulations, and theoretical frameworks. We demonstrated that the main mechanism of string self-assembly is merging, driven by the interplay between gravity and induced tunable interparticle interactions. During this process, the system has to overcome a saddle point on the energy landscape, whose height increases with the string height. At a certain point, further self-assembly becomes kinetically blocked in a metastable state, far from equilibrium. This contrasts sharply with the typical scenario for tunable self-assembly in two dimensions, where the resulting structures usually correspond to the equilibrium state. Therefore, this finding opens up opportunities for more detailed control of three-dimensional tunable self-assembly by designing and tuning various potential barriers along the kinetic pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study microbubbles (MBs) in aqueous electrolyte solutions and show that increasing the salt concentration slows down the kinetics of MB dissolution. We modified the Epstein–Plesset theory and experimented with NaCl aqueous solutions to estimate the MB effective surface charge and to compare it with predictions from the modified Poisson–Boltzmann theory. Our results reveal a mechanism responsible for the change in the dissolution of MBs in aqueous electrolyte solutions, with implications for emerging fields ranging from physics of solutions to soft and biological matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rotational dynamics of microparticles in liquids have a wide range of applications, including chemical microreactors, biotechnologies, microfluidic devices, tunable heat and mass transfer, and fundamental understanding of chiral active soft matter which refers to systems composed of particles that exhibit a handedness in their rotation, breaking mirror symmetry at the microscopic level. Here, we report on the study of two effects in colloids in rotating electric fields: (i) the rotation of individual colloidal particles in rotating electric field and related to that (ii) precession of pairs of particles. We show that the mechanism responsible for the rotation of individual particles is related to the time lag between the external field applied to the particle and the particle polarization. Using numerical simulations and experiments with silica particles in a water-based solvent, we prove that the observed rotation of particle pairs and triplets is governed by the tunable rotation of individual particles and can be explained and described by the action of hydrodynamic forces. Our findings demonstrate that colloidal suspensions in rotating electric fields, under some conditions, represent a novel class of chiral soft active matter—tunable colloidal spinners. The experiments and the corresponding theoretical framework we developed open novel prospects for future studies of these systems and for their potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate analysis of pair correlations in condensed matter allows us to establish relations between structures and thermodynamic properties and, thus, is of high importance for a wide range of systems, from solids to colloidal suspensions. Recently, the interpolation method (IM) that describes satisfactorily the shape of pair correlation peaks at short and at long distances has been elaborated theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations, but it has not been verified experimentally as yet. Here, we test the IM by particle-resolved studies with colloidal suspensions and with complex (dusty) plasmas and demonstrate that, owing to its high accuracy, the IM can be used to experimentally measure parameters that describe interaction between particles in these systems. We used three- and two-dimensional colloidal crystals and monolayer complex (dusty) plasma crystals to explore suitability of the IM in systems with soft to hard-sphere-like repulsion between particles. In addition to the systems with pairwise interactions, if many-body interactions can be mapped to the pairwise ones with some effective (e.g., density-dependent) parameters, the IM could be used to obtain these parameters. The results reliably show that the IM can be effectively used for analysis of pair correlations and interactions in a wide variety of systems and therefore is of broad interest in condensed matter, complex plasma, chemical physics, physical chemistry, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A phase‐field crystal model (PFC model) which takes into account exponential relaxation of the atomic flux and its fluctuations is developed. The model corresponds to a system undergoing phase transformation described with a partial differential equation of hyperbolic type. Such a model covers slow and rapid regimes of interface propagation at small and large driving forces during melting and solidification. The analysis is done for the evolution of atomic crystal lattices appearing from a metastable homogeneous liquid for the chemically pure system supercooled below its critical temperature. Numerical simulation of the system "Liquid ‐ Body Centered Cubic (BCC) crystal lattice" allows us to formulate the hypothesis about the formation of metastable periodic solutions (atomic configurations which are not in the thermodynamic equilibrium) during the relaxation of atomic configurations to the stable equilibrium. These metastable states may be destroyed (or even avoided) due to the action of colored noise. Namely, considering spatiotemporal correlations of the atomic flux fluctuations, we have found that the temporal correlations promote selecting long‐range atomic lattices, whereas the spatial correlations corresponding to the periodic structure scales decelerate such processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel approach for the enhancement of nonlinear optical effects inside globular photonic crystals (PCs) is proposed and systematically studied via numerical simulations. The enhanced optical harmonic generation is associated with two- and three-dimensional PC pumping with the wavelength corresponding to different PC band-gaps. The interactions between light and the PC are numerically simulated using the finite-difference time-domain technique for solving the Maxwell's equations. Both empty and infiltrated two-dimensional PC structures are considered. A significant enhancement of harmonic generation is predicted owing to the highly efficient PC pumping based on the structural light focusing effect inside the PC structure. It is shown that a highly efficient harmonic generation could be attained for both the empty and infiltrated two- and three-dimensional PCs. We are demonstrating the ability for two times enhancement of the parametric decay efficiency, one order enhancement of the second harmonic generation, and two order enhancement of the third harmonic generation in PC structures in comparison to the nonlinear generations in appropriate homogenous media. Obviously, the nonlinear processes should be allowed by the molecular symmetry. The criteria of the nonlinear process efficiency are specified and calculated as a function of pumping wavelength position towards the PC globule diameter. Obtained criterion curves exhibit oscillating characteristics, which indicates that the highly efficient generation corresponds to the various PC band-gap pumping. The highest efficiency of nonlinear conversions could be reached for PC pumping with femtosecond optical pulses; thus, the local peak intensity would be maximized. Possible applications of the observed phenomenon are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]