We study the nucleation of blebs, i.e., protrusions arising from a local detachment of the membrane from the cortex of a cell. Based on a simple model of elastic linkers with force-dependent kinetics, we show that bleb nucleation is governed by membrane peeling. By this mechanism, the growth or shrinkage of a detached membrane patch is completely determined by the linker kinetics, regardless of...

Extracellular matrix proteins are considered to play essential roles in controlling the nucleation, growth, and organization of hydroxyapatite crystals during enamel formation. The effects of amelogenin and the 32-kDa enamelin proteins on apatite nucleation were investigated by a steady-state gel diffusion device containing 10% gelatin gels loaded with 0, 0.75%, and 1.5% (w/w) native porcine am...

The previous work of Professor W. G. Burgers and Dr. A. J. Bogers is used to develop a mechanism of strain-induced martensitic nucleation, involving two intersecting shear systems. We distinguish between strain-induced nucleation and stressassisted nucleation, the latter involving the same sites and embryos as does the regular spontaneous transformation. The strain-induced nucleation, on the ot...

Density-functional tight-binding molecular dynamics (DFTB/MD) methods were employed to demonstrate single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) nucleation resulting from thermal annealing of SiC nanoparticles. SWNT nucleation in this case is preceded by a change of the SiC structure from a crystalline one, to one in which silicon and carbon are segregated. This structural transformation ultimately resu...

Current transient evolution and in situ electrochemical AFM were used to study the initial stages of growth of electrochemically deposited nickel cobalt hydroxide films for energy storage applications. Current transients were taken at constant potentials, from -700 mV to -1000 mV, with a step of 50 mV. The current transients were fitted with three different nucleation models: Scharifker-Hill, S...

Atomic scale simulations of the nucleation and growth of carbon nanotubes is essential for understanding their growth mechanism. In spite of over twenty years of simulation efforts in this area, limited progress has so far been made on addressing the role of the hydrocarbon growth precursor. Here we report on atomic scale simulations of cap nucleation of single-walled carbon nanotubes from hydr...

Experiments reported herein document heterogeneous crystal nucleation on bubbles in supercooled lithium disilicate melt. Crystalline lithium disilicate (Li2Si2O5) nucleated and grew on small bubbles (;1 mm) with a one-to-one correspondence between the number of bubbles and crystals (ranging from ,102 to ;105 bubbles/mm3). Crystals grew on large bubbles (.100 mm) only in samples fused in N2, sug...

Here, we describe an improved system for protein crystallization based on heterogeneous nucleation using fluorinated layered silicate. In addition, we also investigated the mechanism of nucleation on the silicate surface. Crystallization of lysozyme using silicates with different chemical compositions indicated that fluorosilicates promoted nucleation whereas the silicates without fluorine did ...

A theoretical study of the nucleation, size, and structure of diamond phase carbon clusters on Si~111! substrates is presented. Molecular mechanics analysis has been utilized to predict energetically and entropically feasible pathways for nucleation of the carbon clusters. Several mechanistic pathways for nucleation of carbon clusters are examined with CH3 and/or C2H2 as the nucleation precurso...

Four self-assembled monolayer surfaces terminated with -COOH, -OH, -NH2 and -CH3 functional groups are used to direct the biomineralization processes of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in low Ca(2+) concentration, and the mechanism of nucleation and initial crystallization within 12 h was further explored. On -COOH surface, nucleation occurs mainly via ion aggregation mechanism while prenucleation io...