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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Catherine's Image got selected for FNR Science Image Competition
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ESMP in letzscience
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Congratulations Camila!
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Congratulations to Larry!
In this article, they present the wet spinning of core–sheath liquid crystal-filled elastomer fibers using a microfluidic spinneret adapted from the normal techniques they use to produce shells and droplets. In particular, when we spin fibers containing a cholesteric liquid crystal, the result showing brilliant reflected colors as a result of the liquid crystal alignment within the fiber core. These fibers can be highly stretchable and show color changes upon heating and cooling.
You can access the article here.
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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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Free access to recently published article!
Here is the link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IYDnU3EmF4siHuDtK3Km/full
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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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 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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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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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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YooMee defends her M.Sc. thesis
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.
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).
Camila Honorato joins as doctoral candidate
Benjamin Henx joins the group
Sammy Wagner joins the group
Duckhee Kim comes to Luxembourg
JungHyun Noh joins as Ph.D. candidate
Kevin defends his B.Sc. thesis
Kevin Reguengo de Sousa joins the group
Catherine Reyes joins the group
JungHyun awarded for her presentation at KLCC
JungHyun Noh received a best presentation award for her talk at the Korean Liquid Crystal Conference in Jeonju, 23rd-24th of January 2014, on the microfluidic preparation of cholesteric liquid crystal droplets and the analysis of their photonic behaviour. Congratulations! This work was also recently published in Journal of Materials Chemistry C, which chose to feature her work on the cover page.JungHyun defends her M.Sc. thesis
Congratulations to JungHyun Noh who successfully defended her M.Sc. thesis, “Two Novel Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Systems: Microfluidics-Produced Droplets and Self-Assembled Cellulose Nanocrystal Films” on the 6th of December 2013 at the Graduate School of Convergence Science & Technology. The thesis will soon be available for download from the publications page.Hsin-Ling defends her Ph.D. thesis
Stefan defends his PhD.
YooMee Kye joins the SNM lab
Eva Enz defends her Ph.D.
GSCST campus visit/convergence concert programs
- 9th of October in the AICT Conference Room A101, Gwanggyo Campus
- 11th of October, Mogam Hall 1st floor, Gwanak Campus.
Four new students join the group
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 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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