Publications related to Redefining solubility parameters: Bulk and surface properties from unified molecular descriptors

First-principles thermodynamics of precipitation in aluminum-containing refractory alloys

Materials for high -temperature environments are actively being investigated for deployment in aerospace and nuclear applications. This study uses computational approaches to unravel the crystallography and thermodynamics of a promising class of refractory ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Unique corrosion behavior of an archaeological Roman iron ring: Microchemical characterization and thermodynamic considerations

Stefano Mischler, Laura Brambilla

The corrosion mechanisms of a Roman iron bezel ring were investigated by in-depth characterization of its uncommon corrosion pattern and thermodynamic modelling. A silver foil and altered glass remnants were identified, covered with thick strata of magneti ...

2024

Advances in hydration and thermodynamics of cementitious systems

Patrick Juilland, Karen Scrivener, Aslam Kunhi Mohamed, Thomas Matschei, Fabien Jacques Michel Georget

Optimising the hydration of cementitious materials is crucial to leverage their full potential and avoid wasting resources, embodied energy and CO2. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms is key to reach these objectives. In this paper, we review progres ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2023

Spectral and thermodynamic properties of interacting electrons with dynamical functionals

Tommaso Chiarotti

Empowered by ever-increasing computational power and algorithmic developments, electronic-structure simulations continue to drive research and innovation in materials science. In this context, ab-initio calculations offer an unbiased platform for the under ...

EPFL2023

Individual and combined benefits of different nonequilibrium proofreading mechanisms

Paolo De Los Rios, Adélaïde Alice Mohr, Stefano Zamuner, Daniel Maria Busiello

Genome duplication, transcription, and translation are among many crucial cellular processes that need to be performed with high fidelity. However, those extremely low error rates cannot be explained with simple equilibrium thermodynamic considerations. Th ...

Amer Physical Soc2023

Growth and investigation of Argon thin films adsorbed on graphite by means of Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

Paolo Usai

Starting from our big universe to the microscopic world, phase transitions play an important role in nature. Just after the Big Bang our universe experienced multiple phase transitions, from high-temperature plasma to the matter we know today. Phase transi ...

EPFL2023

Wetting Dynamics Beneath an Impacting Droplet

Ramin Kaviani

Many natural and industrial processes involve fluid flow at a three phase interface between liquid, solid and gas. When the liquid is forced to move rapidly over the solid surface, the physical mechanisms governing contact line motions are multi-phase and ...

EPFL2023

The 2022 applied physics by pioneering women: a roadmap

Anna Fontcuberta i Morral, Hyunjung Kim, Hui Dong

Women have made significant contributions to applied physics research and development, and their participation is vital to continued progress. Recognizing these contributions is important for encouraging increased involvement and creating an equitable envi ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2023

Metal-insulator transition in composition-tuned nickel oxide films

Jean-Marc Triscone, Duncan Thomas Lindsay Alexander, Bernat Mundet

Thin films of the solid solution Nd1-xLaxNiO3 are grown in order to study the expected 0 K phase transitions at a specific composition. We experimentally map out the structural, electronic and magnetic properties as a function of x and a discontinuous, pos ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2023

Optical manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles: Applications in surface chemistry and nano-optics

Jeonghyeon Kim

Optical tweezers are devices that can manipulate nano- and microparticles using a laser. The principle of optical tweezers is to apply a force to an object using the momentum of light. This force is very small, but it is sufficient to move things in the mi ...

EPFL2023

Optimal enzyme utilization suggests that concentrations and thermodynamics determine binding mechanisms and enzyme saturations

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Daniel Robert Weilandt, Asli Sahin

One of the main challenges hampering the development of kinetic models is the lack of kinetic parameters for many enzymatic reactions. Here, the authors introduce a framework to explore the catalytically optimal operating conditions of any complex enzyme m ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Machine-learning the electronic density of states: electronic properties without quantum mechanics

Chiheb Ben Mahmoud

The electronic density of states (DOS) quantifies the distribution of the energy levels that can be occupied by electrons in a quasiparticle picture and is central to modern electronic structure theory. It also underpins the computation and interpretation ...

EPFL2023

Controlling surface effects in extremely high aspect ratio gold plasmonic electrodes

Christian Santschi, Olivier Martin, Marco Riccardi

Nanofabrication is key to many technological advances, especially the challenge of merging nanophotonics with electronics. Here, we investigate the fabrication process of plasmonic interdigitated gold electrodes having a very high aspect ratio (i.e. long a ...

ELSEVIER2022

Site-selective overgrowth of Ag nanocrystals by Polyvinylpyrrolidone-mediated atom deposition by Ostwald ripening

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Alejandro Lapresta Fernandez

The growth modulation of metal nanocrystals (NCs) by Ostwald ripening (OR) involves control of the relocation of matter by diffusional mass transfer from the dissolution of small nanocrystals (SNCs) towards large nanocrystals whose surface energy is lower. ...

ELSEVIER2022

Thermodynamics of organic electrochemical transistors

Hsin Tseng, Matteo Cucchi

Though models describing the operating mechanism of organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been developed, these models are unable to accurately reproduce OECT electrical characteristics. Here, the authors report a thermodynamic-based framework t ...

Nature Portfolio2022

A complete description of thermodynamic stabilities of molecular crystals

Venkat Kapil, Edgar Albert Engel

Predictions of relative stabilities of (competing) molecular crystals are of great technological relevance, most notably for the pharmaceutical industry. However, they present a long-standing challenge for modeling, as often minuscule free energy differenc ...

National Academy of Sciences2022

Electric metal contacts to monolayer blue phosphorus: electronic and chemical properties

Pengfei Ou, Xiao Zhou, Cheng Chen

The contact nature when monolayer blue phosphorus (blueP) interfaces with three transition metal electrodes (i. e., Pd, Ir, and Pt) was unraveled by the ab initio density functional theory calculations. Specifically, n-type Schottky contact is observed for ...

ELSEVIER2022

Unified Green's function approach for spectral and thermodynamic properties from algorithmic inversion of dynamical potentials

Nicola Marzari, Tommaso Chiarotti, Andrea Ferretti

Dynamical potentials appear in many advanced electronic-structure methods, including self-energies from many-body perturbation theory, dynamical mean-field theory, electronic-transport formulations, and many embedding approaches. Here, we propose a novel t ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2022

Temperature Dependent Properties of the Aqueous Electron

Alfredo Pasquarello, Jinggang Lan

The temperature-dependent properties of the aqueous electron have been extensively studied using mixed quantum-classical simulations in a wide range of thermodynamic conditions based on one-electron pseudopotentials. While the cavity model appears to expla ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2022

Effects of surface wettability on (001)-WO3 and (100)-WSe2: A spin-polarized DFT-MD study

Kevin Sivula, Rangsiman Ketkaew

An extensive understanding of WO3 and WSe2 bulk crystalline structures and explicit solvent effects on (001)-WO3 and (100)-WSe2 facets are essential for design of efficient (photo) electrocatalysts. The atomistic level understanding of both WO(3 )and WSe2 ...

ELSEVIER2022