Title: On the Similarities Between Actively Driven and Sheared Glasses

Speaker: Rishabh Sharma (TIFR Hyderabad)

Abstract:

Investigating the behaviour of glasses under various external loads continues to be an intriguing area of research with clear practical implications. Computational studies offer valuable insights into the phenomena that emerge under such conditions. In my talk, I will discuss two distinct studies. We will explore how activity and shearing show strikingly similar manifestations in amorphous materials across both investigations. Specifically, in the first study, I will discuss cavitation instabilities in glasses and how these instabilities selectively couple more effectively to certain deformation modes over others [1]. In the second part, I will focus on how activity can be used to enhance the annealing process, consequently offering a means to fine-tune the ductility of glasses. I will also highlight that yielding in active glasses bears a striking similarity to yielding of glasses under cyclic shear, suggesting a deeper correspondence between the two processes [2].

Finally, if time permits, I would like to give a brief overview of our latest work, dealing with memory encodings in amorphous solids at both the bulk and nanoscale levels. I will point out some of the shortcomings overlooked in the literature thus far and introduce new protocols for creating “fast” and “robust” memories [3].

References:

[1] “Cavitation instabilities in amorphous solids via secondary mechanical

  perturbations” - UA Dattani, R Sharma, S Karmakar, P Chaudhuri, arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.04529

[2] “Activity-Induced Annealing Leads to Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Amorphous

  Solids” - R Sharma, S Karmakar, arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.17545

[3] “Encoding Robust and Fast Memories in Bulk and Nanoscale Amorphous Solids” -

  M Adhikari, R Sharma, S Karmakar, arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.10682

This seminar will take place in room C4.174