Title: Columnar structures of spheres

Abstract: Columnar structures, many of which are helical, refer to dense cylindrical packings of particles. They are ubiquitous, for example, they exist in the contexts of botany, foams, and nanoscience. There have been in‐depth investigations of columnar structures of both hard spheres (e.g., ball bearings) and soft spheres (e.g., wet foams), through computer simulations, analytic derivations, or simple experiments. In this seminar, I will present you an overview of the fundamentals and applications of such structures, based on our recently published monograph on this subject. I will review some of the theoretical and experimental methods employed to assemble such structures, and then discuss some of the latest findings related to the structural transitions and hysteretic behaviour of such systems.

Host: Karen Daniels