A thin metal film vapor deposited on thick elastomer substrate develops an equi-biaxial compressive stress state when the system is cooled due to the large thermal expansion mismatch between the elastomer and the metal. At a critical stress, the film undergoes buckling into a family of modes with short wavelengths characteristic of a thin plate on a compliant elastic foundation. As the system i...

2014 We study the interplay between crystalline (or hexatic) order and thermal fluctuations in membranes with vanishing surface tension. If the connectivity of the crystalline state is preserved, the membrane remains uncrumpled at low temperatures. When dislocations are allowed, however, screening of elastic stresses by buckling reduces dislocation energies, and promotes dislocation unbinding. ...

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We observe quasistatic deformation of lipid vesicles from within, due to the polymerization of confined microtubules. A pair of long, narrow membrane sleeves appears, sheathing the microtubule ends as they grow. Spontaneous buckling reveals that the force generated can be greater than 2 pN. The evolution of shape and magnitude of force are consistent with a simple theory for the membrane free e...

A stiff thin film on a heated compliant substrate may buckle when the system is cooled due to the thermal expansion mismatch between the film and substrate. Highly ordered and disordered herringbone patterns wavy structures then emerge as the system continues to cool. We have established an analytic approach to study one-dimensional, checkerboard, and ordered herringbone buckling patterns. The ...

Instability and structural transitions arise in many important problems involving dynamics at molecular length scales. Buckling of an elastic rod under a compressive load offers a useful general picture of such a transition. However, the existing theoretical description of buckling is applicable in the load response of macroscopic structures, only when fluctuations can be neglected, whereas mem...

Finite element simulations are carried out to characterize a new fracture specimen, consisting of an outer circular epoxy ring bonded to an inner circular invar plate for accelerated thermal fatigue testing. Radial cracks are introduced in the epoxy ring. The growth of these radial cracks is correlated to the applied energy release rate G. We studied the dependence of G on the crack length, the...