Figure 7.

(a) Schematic representation of the flow-induced cascading reduction of a free energy barrier. Initially the system possesses homogeneous structures (i.e., spherical micelles in purple dots). External fields (e.g., coupling shear flow and low temperature in our case) suppress the excessively large energy barrier to form ordered structures by triggering the formation of dissipative structures (i.e., crystal-like structures) depicted in multiple states (blue curve). In the absence of external fields, homogenous structures require significantly higher amount of energy to form ordered structures (red curve). (b) Under external fields, spherical micelles can follow the free energy landscape trajectory (blue curve shown in (a)) and form dissipative structures such as wormlike micelles, branched micelles, triggering the formation of unfolded/aligned/stacked branched micelle aggregates and nano-crystal nuclei, eventually transforming into crystal-like structures (CLS)⁴⁷.