Congratulations to Jan and to our collaborators in Frank Giesselmann's group at the University of Stuttgart and in Per Rudquist's group at Chalmers University of Technology for their latest publication in npj Soft Matter, "Electrospun fibers with axially polarized ferroelectric nematic core"! A combination of our longstanding electrospinning work with the exciting and emerging world of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals, this work reports on the results of electrospinning polymer fibers containing a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal core. The unique properties of ferroelectric nematics suppress the onset of Rayleigh–Plateau instability, giving rise to very easy, continuous filling and unusual behavior in the fibers.

The article is open access and free to read. Congrats again to the team!

/LWH/

This past week, a group of us from ESMP went to this year's International Liquid Crystal Conference in Québec City, Canada! Jan gave a plenary invited talk, while Yong and Churchill got to present contributed oral talks and Yosuke presented a poster. Apart from that, it was a great time to reconnect with friends and colleagues and discover the latest research in the liquid crystal field while also enjoying a unique part of Canada.

/LWH/

This past week, Jan and Amina attended this year's Fiber Society conference at EMPA in St. Gallen, Switzerland! Jan presented on some of our work on mechanochromic liquid crystal elastomers while both Jan and Amina enjoyed networking and the beautiful surroundings of northeastern Switzerland.

/LWH/

On 13 May, the Section des Sciences of the Institut Grand Ducal, a learned society of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, inducted its latest full members, including Jan! We had a short reception where Jan and the other inductees (from the University of Luxembourg) were presented and got the chance to briefly present about their research. Naturally, there were some practical demonstration aids brought for the occasion, covering a few of our ongoing projects.

Häerzlech Gléckwonsch, Jan!

/LWH/

After a lot of preparatory work, the 52nd German Liquid Crystal Conference has come and gone, seemingly in a flash: two and a half days of fascinating liquid crystal research in the form of interesting talks and posters in the unique environment of Campus Belval. We sincerely thank all of the attendees, sponsors, and people who submitted abstracts for making this conference possible. We welcomed 118 participants to Luxembourg, representing 19 countries and territories, underscoring the truly international scope of liquid crystal research.

We look forward to seeing some/many of you at the next German Liquid Crystal Conference in Essen in 2027! (Or other conferences, wherever they show up.)

/LWH/

P.S. A special congratulations goes to our group members Tanja Avsievich and Miriam Fischer (pictured) for winning one of the poster prizes!