We study the kinetic pathways for the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a fluid of colloidal hard rods. In order to follow the formation of the nematic phase, we develop a new cluster criterion that distinguishes nematic clusters from the isotropic phase. Applying this criterion in Monte Carlo simulations, we find spinodal decomposition as well as nucleation and growth depending on the supersa...

An analysis of the dynamics of prolate swimming particles in laminar flow is presented. It is shown that the particles concentrate around flow regions with chaotic trajectories. When the swimming velocity is larger than a threshold, dependent on the aspect ratio of the particles, all particles escape from regular elliptic regions. For thin rodlike particles the threshold velocity vanishes; thus...

Helical nano-ribbons with a large aspect ratio were obtained through the self-assembly of an achiral amphiphile. The symmetry breaking is attributed to the orderly but twisted stacking of terpyridine groups. In addition, the morphology of the assemblies can be tuned by the coordination between terpyridine and Zn(2+) ion.

Using a histogram Monte Carlo method and nonuniversal metric factors of a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 193 (1995)], we find that the probability for the appearance of n, n ­ 1, 2, . . . , top to bottom percolating clusters on finite square, planar triangular, and honeycomb lattices falls on the same universal scaling functions, which show interesting behavior as the aspect ratio of the l...

A mean field model is presented for the configuration dependent effective demagnetizing and anisotropy fields in assemblies of exchange decoupled magnetic particles of arbitrary shape which are expressed in terms of the demagnetizing factors of the particles and the volumetric shape containing the assembly. Perpendicularly magnetized two-dimensional (2D) assemblies have been considered, for whi...