Chiral active particles are sensitive reporters to environmental geometry.

Chiral active particles (CAPs) are self-propelling particles that break time-reversal symmetry by orbiting or spinning, leading to intriguing behaviors. Here, we examined the dynamics of CAPs moving in 2D lattices of disk obstacles through active Brownian dynamics simulations and granular experiments with grass seeds. We find that the effective diffusivity of the CAPs is sensitive to the structure of the obstacle lattice, a feature absent in achiral active particles.

Surface premelting and melting of colloidal glasses.

The nature of liquid-to-glass transition is a major puzzle in science. A similar challenge exists in glass-to-liquid transition, i.e.

Power laws in pressure-induced structural change of glasses.

Many glasses exhibit fractional power law (FPL) between the mean atomic volume v and the first diffraction peak position q, i.e. [Formula: see text] with d ≃ 2.