Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 11, 2026

Analyzing Melts and Fluids from Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulations with the UMD Package
Published on: September 17, 2021
Molecular dynamics simulation of charged colloids confined between hard walls: pre-melting and pre-freezing across
Mojtaba Eshraghi1, Jürgen Horbach
1Institute for Theoretical Physics II: Soft Matter, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. horbach@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de.
Abstract:
Molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations are used to study the structure of hard-core Yukawa systems confined between two parallel hard walls. States around the coexistence between a fluid and a body-centered cubic (BCC) crystal are considered. In all cases a pronounced layering in the vicinity of the walls is observed. Using a thermodynamic integration scheme, we determine the wall-fluid interfacial free energy γ which is negative and monotonically decreasing with increasing bulk density of the fluid. In the case of the fluid, the layers next to the walls undergo a transition from a fluid to a hexagonal structure. This pre-freezing transition occurs well below the coexistence bulk density of the fluid. The confined BCC crystal in (111) orientation shows melted regions between crystalline face-centered cubic (FCC) layers close to the wall and the BCC bulk region.
Related Concept Videos
Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing
pre-mRNA Processing
Once about 20-40 ribonucleotides have been joined together by RNA polymerase, a group of enzymes adds a “cap” to the 5’ end of the growing transcript. In this process, a 5’ phosphate is replaced by modified guanosine that has a methyl group attached to it (7-Methyl...
Pre-mRNA Processing: Modification of pre-mRNA Ends
Once about 20-40 ribonucleotides have been joined together by RNA polymerase, a group of enzymes adds a cap to the 5' end of the growing transcript. In this process, a 5' phosphate is replaced by modified guanosine that has a methyl group attached (7-methyl guanosine). This 5' cap helps...
Colloids
Chromatin Structure Regulates pre-mRNA Processing
The chromatin structure, especially...
Pre-mRNA Processing: RNA Splicing

