We investigate the conductivity variation with density of compacted vapour-grown carbon fibre (VGCF). The results indicate a typical transition between a non-linear domain at low compaction conditions and a regime where the conductivity increases roughly linearly with density when the sample is...

Fractal nanostructured materials, such as nanocomposites and self-affine thin films, are shown to possess giant optical nonlinearities. The enhancement results from the sub-wavelength localization of dipolar modes and strong local field fluctuations.

The electrical resistance of a percolating medium made of a polymer filled with conductive particles may undergo a steep increase over a narrow temperature range above room temperature. A likely mechanism for the effect is the loss of interparticle contact inducing a weakening of the...

We explore the conductance of self-healing materials as a measure of the material integrity in the regime of the onset of the initial fatigue. Continuum effective-field modeling and lattice numerical simulations are reported. Our results illustrate the general features of the self-healing...

We review here the response of mainly conductor-insulator mixtures just above the percolation threshold (pc) under dc bias. I–V characteristics changes from being linear to nonlinear as the applied bias is increased. Closer a sample is to pc, greater is the nonlinearity. Analysis of nonlinear...