It is now well known that details in the intermolecular potential can significantly affect the qualitative features of a phase diagram where temperature is plotted against density for the coexistence curves among fluid and solid phases. While previous calculations of phase diagrams have assumed a time-invariant potential function, this report concerns the phase diagram for “breathing” molecules...

Carbon in its various forms, specifically nanocrystalline diamond, may become a key material for the manufacturing of microand nano-electromechanical (M/NEMS) devices in the twenty-first century. To utilize effectively these materials for M/NEMS applications, understanding of their microscopic structure and physical properties (mechanical properties, in particular) become indispensable. The mic...

Dynamic atomic force microscopy, in essence, consists of a vibrating microcantilever with a nanoscale tip that interacts with a sample surface via shortand long-range intermolecular forces. Microcantilevers possess several distinct eigenmodes and the tip-sample interaction forces are highly nonlinear. As a consequence, cantilevers vibrate in interesting, often unanticipated ways; some are detri...

A polarizable intermolecular potential function (PIPF) employing the Thole interacting dipole (TID) polarization model has been developed for liquid alkanes and amides. In connection with the internal bonding terms of the CHARMM22 force field, the present PIPF-CHARMM potential provides an adequate description of structural and thermodynamic properties for liquid alkanes and for liquid amides th...

The polysaccharide xanthan has been extensively studied owing to its potential application in tissue engineering. In this paper, xanthan scaffold structures were investigated by atomic force microscope (AFM) in liquid, and the mechanical properties of the complex xanthan structures were investigated by using AFM-based force spectroscopy (FS). In this work, three types of structures in the xanth...