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Our Current ESMP Team
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Deniz Avsar
PhD CandidateDeniz earned her master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey. During her master’s study, she worked on the synthesis and characterization of sensor microparticles templated from cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) to develop artificial photonic materials for the detection of volatile organic compounds. She joined the ESMP in September 2021 as a PhD candidate to work on TRANSCEND project.
CURRENT PROJECT
TRANSCEND Project: Transforming autonomous navigation, swarm robotics and construction by encoding data into surfaces.
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Adamantia Galani
Administrative staffAdamantia help our group in many ways: Administration, balance our budgets and purchase all of our equipment.
Yong Geng
Postdoctoral ResearcherYong received his Bachelor and Master degrees in Physics from China, and then his PhD in 2013 in materials science from New University of Lisbon, Portugal, in the group of Prof. Maria Helena Godinho, where he did a short post-doc as well. After that he did a one-year post-doc in Prof. Ralf Stannarius’s group in Magdeburg University and worked with Alexey Eremi, during which he had a chance to spend two months in Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary and collaborated with Dr. Tamás Börzsönyl and Dr. Péter Salamon, funded by COST ic1208. More info
CURRENT PROJECT
Selective reflections from cholesteric liquid crystal shells.
ORCiD
From July 2015 to September 2017, he worked as post-doc in our group, mainly focusing on the studying of selective reflections from cholesteric liquid crystal shells. Now he is back and will continue the work he previously worked on.
His research interest covers ordering- disordering process of polymers and liquid crystals, phase transitions; Optical properties of cholesteric liquid crystals; microfluidics; liquid crystalline networks; self-assembly of functional polymers, liquid crystals and particles.
+352 46 66 44 4994
Jan Lagerwall
PI & Group LeaderJan leads the Experimental Soft Matter Physics (ESMP) group. Check out his personal website below for details.
WEBSITE
CURRENT PROJECT
Teaching, advising, helping us (his group) publish papers & be better researchers
ORCiD
+352 46 66 44 6219
Axel Lorant
Master studentIn 2021, Axel completed his bachelor's thesis within the ESMP group. He has since returned to the group to pursue his second-year master's thesis. Currently, he is actively engaged in the REVEAL project, where his focus is on developing methods to create CLCE films that are suitable for a wide range of practical applications.
CURRENT PROJECT
Developing methods to create CLCE films for a wide range of practical applications.
Xu MA
PhD CandidateXu earned her master degree on science in physics at university of Luxembourg. Now she will continue in our group for her PhD study. She worked on “Spontaneous adsorption and self-organization of colloid particles at fluid interfaces” before. Currently, she is working on using electrospray and controlled phase separation guided by confinement in droplets to make Cholesteric Spherical Reflectors (CSRs).
CURRENT PROJECT
ECLIPSE Project: Using electrospray and controlled phase separation to make Cholesteric Spherical Reflectors (CSRs)
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Yosuke Pestana Nakamura
Master student Yosuke completed his Bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Luxembourg. Presently, he is engaged in REVEAL project, in order to finalize the Master's thesis. His main focus lies in the development of liquid crystal polymer fibres, designed to exhibit mechanochromic response, employing a microfluidic wet spinning technique.
CURRENT PROJECT
Mechanochromic response liquid crystal polymer fibres with microfluidic wet spinning technique.
Najiya
PhD CandidateNajiya earned her Masters from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali in India. Before joining ESMP group, she worked on liquid crystal (LC) bio sensing, Synthesis and characterisation of LCs. Currently, she does her PhD with us on "Physics meet Biology" scheme, specifically on research in liquid crystal elastomers for artificial vasculature for sustaining organoid growth.
CURRENT PROJECT
LC elastomers.
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Nikolay Popov
PhD CandidateNikolay earned his Masters in chemistry at Ivanovo State University, Russia. During his Masters he worked at the Nanomaterials Research Institute on the development of liquid crystal (LC) thin films bio-sensing technics. At ESMP Nikolay studied the bottom-up LC elastomer synthesis of shells and tubes using microfluidics. LC elastomer actuators tubes might be potentially useful in future as an artificial vasculature which improves vitality of organoids in-vitro. He also contributed to the MiShell Zero Gravity experiments project. Starting from July 2021 Nikolay will continue his research at ESMP as a doctoral candidate with a new research project which is mainly devoted to improving LC shells stability and their use in bio-sensing applications.
CURRENT PROJECT
Liquid crystal shells as reporters of biomolecular adsorption events
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Zornitza ('Zory') Tosheva
Research Associate+352 46 66 44 6332
Zory is involved in several projects of the ESMP group, her current main focus being on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) self-assembly.
CURRENT PROJECT
CNC self assembly & film production
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Yansong ZHANG
Postdoctoral ResearcherWith a broad background in various disciplines (polymer chemistry, chemical engineering and photonics), 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.
CURRENT PROJECT
Bio-sensing the frugal way with liquid crystal spheres
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