Recently published article in PRR
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Congratulations to Manos!
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 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: “MicrometerâScale 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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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 InformationâRich 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 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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New article on self-assembled nanowires from discotic liquid crystals
Meeting in Seoul with Younghui Kim and Mathew Schwartz
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.
Three American guests
Karin Cedergren, Chalmers, visits the GSCST
Two guest scientists from Sweden at the GSCST
Bilateral collaboration with Stockholm University on Nanocellulose
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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