Prof. Ning Xu (徐宁 教授)
Email: ningxu@ustc.edu.cn
Office Phone: +86-551-63607970
Research Overview
Our group studies the statistical physics of soft condensed matter and complex materials, with emphasis on amorphous systems and nonequilibrium phenomena. The main research areas include amorphous liquid-solid transitions, the physical nature of amorphous solids, crystallization and melting, nonequilibrium statistical physics, rheology, and mechanical metamaterials.
We aim to connect microscopic structure and dynamics to macroscopic stability, elasticity, yielding, relaxation, flow, and phase-transition-like behavior. By combining theoretical modeling, numerical simulations, and data analysis, we seek to build clear physical pictures for disordered and driven materials.
Main Research Fields
Amorphous Liquid-Solid Transitions
Investigating glass transitions, jamming transitions, structural relaxation, marginal stability, and the microscopic mechanisms of rigidity emergence in disordered systems.
Nature of Amorphous Solids
Studying structural order, vibrational modes, defect excitations, elastic anomalies, and plastic deformation mechanisms in ordinary and ultrastable amorphous solids.
Crystallization, Melting, and Phase Transitions
Exploring nucleation, growth, 2D melting, quasicrystal formation, competition between crystalline/quacrystalline and amorphous orders, and multi-state phase transition pathways in soft matter.
Non-equilibrium Statistics and Active Matter
Focusing on collective emergent behaviors of active matter, aging effects, dissipative structures, fluctuation distributions, and complex dynamics far from equilibrium.
Complex Rheology
Examining viscoelastic evolution, shear bands, yielding transitions, and macroscopic deformation laws in complex media such as metallic glasses, colloids, granular matter, and polymers.
Mechanical Metamaterials
Researching design principles, emergent mechanical responses, topological phase transitions, and programmable mechanical behaviors in artificially structured soft materials, quasicrystalline metamaterials, and disordered media.