Our Communication in Angewandte Chemie on dispersion of carbon nanotubes below the surfactant Krafft temperature, a joint work between the SNM lab and the LC Nano lab of Prof. Giusy Scalia, is now published. The method is a simple but powerful variation of the standard way of dispersing nanoparticles in aqueous surfactant solutions, taking advantage of the Krafft phenomenon to obtain suspensions containing just the amount of surfactant needed for stabilization, but no micelles. This leads to better stability of the dispersion and the minimal excess surfactant is a huge advantage when the nanoparticles are to be used in a device or in a composite. The method is generic and thus applicable to any type of nanoparticle that can be dispersed using any surfactant with Krafft temperature in a convenient temperature range, including many commonly used commercial surfactants.

Utilizing the Krafft phenomenon for achieving ideal micelle-free surfactant-stabilized nanoparticle suspensions
Sarah Dölle, Bob-Dan Lechner, Ji Hyun Park, Stefan Schymura, Jan Lagerwall and Giusy Scalia
Angew. Chemie Int. Ed., 51, pp. 3254 - 3257 (2012)

Tags: publications

Our new paper in Soft Matter on the nematic-smectic transition in hybrid-aligned liquid crystalline shells, homeotropic on the inside and planar on the outside or vice versa, is now available on-line. When the article appears in print it will be featured on the journal cover.

Towards tunable defect arrangements in smectic liquid crystal shells utilizing the nematic-smectic transition in hybrid-aligned geometries
Hsin-Ling Liang, Rudolf Zentel, Per Rudquist and Jan Lagerwall
Soft Matter, 8, (2012), DOI: 10.1039/C2SM07415J

Tags: publications

With the 2012 spring semester starting on the first of March, three new M.Sc. students and one new Ph.D. student join the SNM lab:

Tags: Group, students