Welcome back Yosuke and Axel
Welcome back to Axel (left) and Yosuke (right)
After one year, Axel and Yosuke rejoin our group for their master project.
They both will engaged in the REVEAL project. Axel will focus on developing methods to create CLCE films that are suitable for a wide range of practical applications. Yosuke will focus on the development of liquid crystal polymer fibres, designed to exhibit mechanochromic response, employing a microfluidics wet spinning technique.
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Welcome Valentin and Claudia
Welcome to Valentin (left) and Claudia (right)Valentin and Claudia join our group for their bachelor project.
Valentin will work on Computer simulation of evaporative flows during cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer preparation.
Claudia will work together with Deniz on finding the refractive indices of nematic liquid crystal mixture.
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Welcome Yansong
Welcome to Yansong
Yansong is a materials researcher specialised in light-responded elastomers and self-organizing polymer networks. He received his Master and PhD degree in chemical engineering from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. After that he did three-years post-doc in Prof. Chia-Rong Lee’s group in the department of photonics at same university to develop smart actuators, liquid crystal laser and planar optics. He attempts to synthesis anisotropic polymers with new functionalities and integrate them into optical devices to meet industrial and societal challenges. In January 2022 he became a member of ESMP and is working on to electrospinning fibers and Cholesteric Spherical Reflectors to make innovative pathogen sampling filters and reporters of biomolecular binding events.
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Welcome Katrin and Nikolay!
Welcome to Katrin (left) and Nikolay (right) come back for their further study. Katrin will working on the potential of electrospun, liquid crystal-filled polymer fibres for the quantitative detection of volatile organic compounds. Nikolay will working on liquid crystal shells as reporters of bimolecular adsorption events.
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Welcome Najiya!
Welcome our new PhD candidate Najiya to the ESMP. Najiya will be working on "Physics meet Biology " scheme, specifically on research in liquid crystal elastomers for artificial vasculature for sustaining organoid growth.
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Anjali gets featured on FNR's Spotlight on Young Researchers!
Anjali works on forming liquid crystal shells and she works on trying to stabilize them using different surfactants and polymers.
Anjali and the team (Jampani, Nikolay and Jan from our group) + others from Prof. Ralf Stannarius's group in Magdeburg, Germany, observed LC shell behavior in a micro gravity environment made possible through several parabolic flights initiated in a plane provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Read about & see her experience here on the FNR's site: Spotlight on Young Researchers: Anjali Sharma
Anjali’s PhD is funded by the FNR’s PRIDE programme in the framework of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) MASSENA, which has the goal to improve the understanding and the performance of materials used in sensing and energy harvesting
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New Study on 5CB-Ethanol Phase Separation in Soft Matter + Cover!
"Isotropic-Isotropic phase separation and spinodal decomposition in liquid crystal-solvent mixtures" experimentally & theoretically reveals evidence of coexisting isotropic phases in simple mixtures of ethanol, 5CB, and water. Even though the nematic LC 5CB is arguably the most studied commercial liquid crystal worldwide, for the first time this study highlights experimental evidence of spinodal decomposition and nucleation and growth occuring between two isotropic phases and a single nematic phase between this common compound and equally common solvents.
(Click the image below to visit the article:
All supplementary info is open access!)
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Congratulations to Rao and Jan on the new publication in science advances!
Click here for the link.
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New article in Liquid crystals!
Congratulations to Anjali & Jan on the new publication in Liquid Crystals: "Influence of head group and chain length of surfactants used for stabilising liquid crystal shells"
This is the systematic study of the effect of different surfactants on Nematic LC shell, in terms of stability and alignment.
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Welcome to Rijeesh and Nikolay.
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Welcome to our new post-doc Rijeesh (left) and phd Nikolay (right) who have joined our team. Rijeesh will be working on making cholesteric LC shells for reflector tags. While Nikolay will aim to generate tube-shaped liquid crystal elastomer actuators for biomedical applications.
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New Paper in Adv. Funct. Materials!
(Click the image above to read the article online, it is Open-Access)
Congratulations to Rao & Jan on the new publication in Advanced Functional Materials: “Micrometer‐Scale Porous Buckling Shell Actuators Based on Liquid Crystal Networks”!
After collaborating with Dirk Jan last fall on LCE shells (pic below!) , the study describing the actuation in the porous network + a curious discovery of negative birefringence is finally out & open access.
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TEDx UniLu is Approaching - Ideas Needed!
Our group is officially hosting the 1st ever TEDx event at the University of Luxembourg! The date for the event was just announced to occur on
Oct. 26, 2018! While we cannot actually give talks ourselves on our projects and perspectives, there's still plenty of opportunities for others to get involved in suggesting speaker ideas, or in applying to speak themselves.
Click here to see the official announcement from the university's team & to get more info!
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Welcometo Cyrine - Our New Intern
She will work alongside Anshul in attempting to advance the chemistry regarding our groups' ideas on LCE synthesis
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New Paper in Adv. Materials
(Click the image above to read the article online, it is Open-Access)
Congratulations to Matt & Jan on the new publication in Advanced Materials: “Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Shells as Enabling Material for Information‐Rich Design and Architecture”!
Matt is a long time collaborator of Jan's since his time as a professor at SNU in South Korea. Some of us in the group got the chance to meet him, but eventually we'll all see each other again in a few days when Matt stops by our lab. Originally an architect by training, Matt worked on (and is probably still working on) many interdisciplinary projects involving robotics, and functional architecture design. He is currently a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
In this new article Matt, Jan and a few other collaborators at the SNT (Security, Reliability and Trust) Centre in Luxembourg discuss the possibilities of using cholesteric LC shells as sources for information technology in various architecture, drone, and robotics concepts and applications.
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New Masters Student Joins!
He is still checking out our labs and deciding what research project he will contribute to (might be leaning more towards working with Manos & Benjamin on CNC droplets however).
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GLCC @ Luxembourg Is a Success
Many thanks to all of our collaborators & the participants for a great three days of discussions, talks & prizes.
Be sure to check the website : http://www.lcsoftmatter.com/glcc18lux/ for photos of the conference soon!
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New Paper in Nature Asia
(Click the image above to read the article online, it is Open-Access)
Congratulations to Camila, Christina & Jan on the publication in Nature Asia Materials: "Fractionation of cellulose nanocrystals: enhancing liquid crystal ordering without promoting gelation" !
In a successful collaboration with Prof. Roland Sanctuary's group here at the physics & materials science research unit, this latest research on CNCs (cellulose nano crystals) describes in detail how controlling the fractionation of CNCs according to length can help in preventing the onset of gelation in solutions. The experimental results are discussed against what is already known regarding the aggregation of colloids based on the presence of counterions, and what still needs to be established in the field.
According to the authors: "Our results shine new light on the competition between liquid crystal formation and gelation in nanoparticle suspensions and provide a path for enhanced control of CNC self-organization for applications in photonic crystal paper or advanced composites."
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JungHyun defends her PhD thesis!!!
It was a long time coming - she traveled from South Korea to start her research again Luxembourg as Jan's 1st student in the lab (for the 2nd time actually)
On Friday, March 23rd, 2018 JungHyun Noh successfully defended her doctoral thesis with a presentation on "Tuning liquid crystal self-assembly: from interfacial- to polymer-stabilization"
All of your colleagues wish you a big Congratulations Dr. Noh, & best of luck for your future endeavors & career
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New Bachelors Student Joins!
She will be learning microfluidic LC shell production and be working with Rao for the next few months
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GLCC @ Luxembourg is Fast Approaching!
The conference abstract booklets are all printed & ready to be distributed next week! Be sure to check the site: http://www.lcsoftmatter.com/glcc18lux/ for updates, confirm meal selections, & know poster #s in advance. See you there!
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New Paper in Materials by MDPI Journals
(Click the graphical abstract above to read the article online, it is Open-Access)
Congratulations to Anshul & Jan on the publication in Materials: “Electrospun Composite Liquid Crystal Elastomer Fibers”!
This is the first study to date that shows and analyzes the irreversible actuation of photo-crosslinkable reactive mesogens single axially electrospun with a carrier polymer, to create liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fibers. Don't forget to check out the supplementary info for more details!
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New Paper in J. of Molecular Liquids
(Click the figure image above to access the article online, please email Jan if you cannot download the pdf file)
Congratulations to JungHyun & Rao on the publication in the Journal of Molecular Liquids titled: “Sub-second dynamic phototuning of alignment in azodendrimer-doped nematic liquid crystal shells”!
For the 1st time(!!), a study documents the photoswitching of azodendrimer in liquid crystal shells produced by microfluidics. Ultimately, our group members & colleagues find that phase separation may occur in shells when the dendrimer is in the trans ground state, and that photo switching turns such shells uniform - further indicating that the cis state is better soluble in the LC.
Hooray for the good start to the 2018 year
(Fyi - Also, I think this paper is the 1st to show results obtained from our new confocal microscope as well…so HD, so cool)
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New Langmuir Paper Released Online
(Click the graphical abstract image above to access the article online, please email either Jan or Rao if you cannot download the pdf file)
Congratulations to Larry & Rao on the publication in Langmuir titled: “Microfluidic Tensiometry Technique for the Characterization of the Interfacial Tension between Immiscible Liquids”!
This is Larry's 1st paper in our group (!) and also Rao's 1st time serving as last author on a paper (!)
In this study, Larry and Rao borrow inspiration from the biologists and use the novel technique of micropipette aspiration (commonly used to measure the viscoelastic properties of living cells) to measure the interfacial tension of 5CB, water, and surfactants with a high degree of accuracy (from the sub-millinewton per meter to several hundred millinewton per meter range) solely from experimental observations of the droplet deformation. This is highly unique as information on the liquid density is not needed to find the interfacial tension.
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JPCM Review on LCs in Shells, Droplets & Fibers Makes IOP's 2017 Highlights!
Our review on LCs in Droplets, Shells & Fibers got selected for the 2017 highlights list by IOP Publishing!! Yes mega Congrats to our team!!
Thanks to everyone who also read &/or downloaded our article.
We put a lot of effort into trying to make a review as comprehensive, and as accurate, for those outside and in our fields as possible.
If you want to check the highlights click here (Category is: Soft matter, biophysics and liquids) - http://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0953-8984/page/Highlights-2017
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Work in Progress - New website layout transfer is in bug fixing mode
Apologies for some errors while thew new site is getting updated.
Look out for new fixes in the new year.
See you in 2018!
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Christina Schütz joins the team
You can contact Christina via e-mail here.
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New webmaster for lcsoftmatter.com!
And don't worry, Jan isn't totally going to disappear from this site! (he is our PI after all) He's just getting his own personal site with all of his lectures up and running now too. Once it's ready I'll announce it on here. If you need to contact him though, you can still send him a message through the Contact page, or through his regular University of Luxembourg email address.
Finally, I just wanted to say that I think 2017 is going to be another great year for our group, full of new ideas & exciting research. It's my hope that the site can actually keep up with all the progress we make too.
Toodles*,
Catherine
*Toodles - A shortened anglicized version of the French phrase: à tout à l'heure, which generally means "see you later"
Hakam Agha joins the team
Welcome!!
Dirk Jan Mulder visits the ESMP group
ESMP group at the Luxembourg Science Festival
We will be in the "Tente parvis", at workshop 38: "Lumière fantastique!".
Yong Geng joins as post-doc
Visitors from the USA
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).
Kevin defends his B.Sc. thesis
Kevin Reguengo de Sousa joins the group
Catherine Reyes joins the group
We have a group logo now (officially)
We finally have something that succinctly shows what our very multidisciplinary group does in the labs, & studies, on a regular basis.
What do you think?
& thanks to our very own Larry H. for the great design!
Variations of the logo will be available for download by group members on the Internal Site soon.
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We're hosting the next German Liquid Crystal Conference in March 2018!
This will be a two-day conference on the physics, chemistry, applications & any other aspects of liquid crystals, held at the University of Luxembourg from March 21-23, 2018.
This is exciting for our group because it's going to be the 3rd time we host an international conference & it will be the largest one we've done yet. We are currently in close collaborations with groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, & France (note: this is not in competition with the the current French LC & soft matter society meetings).
Please check out the website for registration below!
http://glcc18lux.lcsoftmatter.com/
Also, our Facebook Page for frequent updates for this year's meeting @ https://www.facebook.com/GLCC2018/
(FYI - Early bird deadline for registration and payment is 16th of February 2018!)
Hope to see you for fun talks on LCs in good ole Lux. this coming March!
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Statement on diversity
We live in polarizing times when it's become easier than ever to ostracize people just because they may think a bit differently, or look a bit differently, from us, but actually these individual traits can help our communities work and think better.
Have a look at our statement under the Team menu under On Diversity & Inclusion.
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New Post-Doc! Manos Anyfantakis joins the team
We're happy to welcome our new post-doc: Manos Anyfantakis! He officially joined the ESMP team at the start of July, and will mainly be working on advancing projects related to hydrodynamic flows, kinetic arrest, LC structure formation in the CNC work we have happening. He received his masters applied molecular spectroscopy in 2007, earned a phd in chemistry in Greece in 2010, and has since travelled to Germany and France for postdocs on the wetting of surfactant solutions and optofluidics phenomena before finally joining us in Luxembourg. You can contact Manos via e-mail here.
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New Phd Students! Anjali & Shameek
Welcome to both Anjali (left) and Shameek (right) who have joined our team as phd students starting in July.
Anjali will be working on making LC shells for advancing bio-related projects, while Shameek will be working on finding new polymers for advancing applications related to electrospun LC-fibers.
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Ross Volpe visits the ESMP group
We have the pleasure to be hosting Ross Volpe, Ph.D. candidate, from Prof. Christopher Yakacki's group at the University of Denver, Colorado, USA, until August (the longest we've had a guest over yet!).
During his stay, he will mostly work with Rao on further advancing the actuation of micro shells & also start the development on actuating cylinders. We hope that these months will result in a great collaboration!
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We hosted the TWISTED Conference!
On May 10-12, 2017, our ESMP group and the Theory of Soft Condensed Matter Group (headed by Prof. Tanja Schilling) organized and held the Twisted Conference, bringing together many of the leaders, and newcomers, in the CNC and lyotropic liquid crystal fields. There were plenty of useful and interesting discussions on the physics, applications, and chemistry of cholesteric LC phases developing in colloidal suspensions of chiral nanorods. We thank all of the participants for actively engaging in our 2nd (ever!) conference we hosted. Another success
Pictures for participants may be found our sister site: http://www.lcsoftmatter.com/twisted/, using the password provided by Jan.
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