Our collaborator Giusy Scalia and her student Ji Hyun Park just published a beautiful study in Langmuir of studies by AFM and electrical conductivity on nanowires formed by spin coating solutions of discotic liquid crystals. Jan is a co-author because of his contributions in the analysis of the data. It turns out that the choice of solvent is critical for the structure formation, aromatic solvents like toluene and benzene leading to extraordinary long-range order, whereas films produced from solutions in chloroform or alkanes exhibited a very grainy and disordered morphology. Read the paper here.

Tags: publications, collaborations

In connection to Jan's trip to Korea for YooMee's defense, he took the opportunity to visit wearable technology artist Younghui Kim (Hongik University) and robotics artist/designer Mathew Schwartz (Advanced Institute of Convergence Technologies) to discuss their collaboration within the framework of Jan's ERC project INTERACT. Here the three are gathered in Younghui's fantastic studio in Seoul, surrounded by her artwork.

Tags: collaborations, projects

Also this summer we have the pleasure to host three students from the USA, within the framework of an NSF-funded IRES program devoted to liquid crystal fibers and filaments, headed by Prof. Tony Jakli at Kent State University (co-PIs are Prof. Margaret Frey, Cornell, and Prof. John West, Kent State University). This year our visitors are Emily Kerr, Aditi Naik and Vanessa Sanchez. Here you see them enjoying Luxembourgish Flammkuchen together with Jan and Catherine (who is the local group member working the most with them during their stay).

Tags: visitors

Congratulations to YooMee Kye on her successful defense of her M.Sc. thesis entitled "Multi-core liquid crystal-polymer composite fibers produced by electrospinning" at the GSCST, Suwon, Korea, on the 12th of June 2015. Her work (the key results of which we hope will soon appear also as a journal article) is the first study of electrospinning fibers with more than one liquid crystal core, importantly with each core containing a different liquid crystal. This gives one and the same fiber multiple functionalities and the ability to respond to different stimuli. Below you see us enjoying an excellent Korean dinner as we celebrated the defense in the evening.

Tags: students, Group