{"id":171481,"date":"2023-09-06T22:25:51","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T03:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/active-particles-push-the-boundaries-of-two-dimensional-solids"},"modified":"2023-09-06T22:25:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T03:25:51","slug":"active-particles-push-the-boundaries-of-two-dimensional-solids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/active-particles-push-the-boundaries-of-two-dimensional-solids","title":{"rendered":"Active Particles Push the Boundaries of Two-Dimensional Solids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/active-particles-push-the-boundaries-of-two-dimensional-solids.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Active particles can form two-dimensional solids that are different from those formed by nonmotile particles, showing long-range crystalline order accompanied by giant spontaneous deformations.<\/p>\n<p>If you compress a liquid slowly enough at low temperatures, it will freeze into an ordered solid: a crystal. Or at least that\u2019s what we\u2019re used to seeing in three dimensions. If you instead consider particles confined to a two-dimensional (2D) plane, the outcome is quite different. For equilibrium systems, a 2D solid stabilizes into a structure that lacks long-range order\u2014it becomes less ordered further away from a central lattice site. The behavior of systems far from equilibrium, such as self-propelled particles, remains, however, an open question. In a numerical study of bacteria-like particles, Xia-qing Shi of Soochow University in China and his colleagues now show that active crystals follow a slightly different set of rules than their nonmotile counterparts [1]. Like 2D equilibrium crystals, 2D active systems stabilize into an ordered solid-like phase but with extremely large particle fluctuations around the configuration of a perfect crystal lattice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Active particles can form two-dimensional solids that are different from those formed by nonmotile particles, showing long-range crystalline order accompanied by giant spontaneous deformations. If you compress a liquid slowly enough at low temperatures, it will freeze into an ordered solid: a crystal. Or at least that\u2019s what we\u2019re used to seeing in three dimensions. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}