What does lcsoftmatter mean ?

The group’s domain name, www.lcsoftmatter.com, is derived from liquid crystalline soft matter, or liquid crystals and soft matter if you prefer. It reflects the fact that we are interested in all kinds of soft matter physics and chemistry, but our core expertise lies in the realm of soft matter with long-range order, so called liquid crystalline phases. You find such phases in many different situations, for instance:

• suspensions of rod- or discshaped nanoparticles such as cellulose nanocrystals, rod-shaped viruses, carbon nanotubes, graphene or mineral platelets
• biological matter like cell membranes or high-concentration solutions of DNA, amyloid fibrils, microtubuli or actin
• small synthetic molecules like those making up the thin responsive fluid layer in your laptop or mobile phone display
• concentrated soap solutions, or in shampoo or conditioners.

You can read more about the large realm of liquid crystalline soft matter and the many uses in our review article on the topic.