In March 2027, the German Liquid Crystal Conference will be going (back) to the University of Duisburg–Essen, but this time as the "1^_st BeNeLux—German Conference on Liquid Crystals and Active Soft Matter and the 53^_rd German Liquid Crystal Conference"! (GLCC2027 in short) Hosted by Prof. Michael Giese's group and co-organized by Jan; Prof. Paul van der Schoot and Prof. Albert Schenning from Eindhoven University of Technology; and Dr. Johanna Bruckner from the University of Stuttgart, and featuring a line-up of high-profile speakers, the focus will be not just on liquid crystals, but also on various flavors of active soft matter (such as "living liquid crystals") and with the scope extended from Germany to groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (and also further afield).

Further details are available on the conference website. We hope to see many of you in Essen in March!

/LWH/

A new publication in Advanced Materials Technologies is out! A collaboration between Jan and Brigitte Städler's group at Aarhus University in Denmark, this work shows the 3D printing of liquid crystal elastomer-based actuators. These LCES can be printed into defined shapes in a PDMS matrix, and these complex shapes can also demonstrate light-driven locomotion at an air–water interface. (Quite relevant for a lot of our current LCE-based work, in fact.)

Like many of our articles, this is free to access and free to read. Congrats to Jan and our collaborators!

/LWH/

This past week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Pasindu Lugoda, an Associate Professor in Rehabilitation Technology at University College London, for a visit to ESMP! Dr. Lugoda presented some of his work on developing textiles and yarns which incorporate active functionalities (and brought some cool prototypes with him), while we also took the opportunity to show him the work we do here at ESMP and discussed some possible collaborations.

/LWH/

For the second workshop (and fourth official meeting) of the ALCEMIST project, a number of us in ESMP as well as related other projects visited Eugene Terentjev's group at the University of Cambridge in the UK!

photo courtesy of Yosuke Pestana Nakamura

Along with our collaborators in Cambridge and at NOVA University of Lisbon, we presented our current/recent work and caught up with our collaborators.

photo credits: Miriam Fischer

In addition to the scientific discussions, we also took the opportunity to enjoy Cambridge and the surroundings, including the customary visit to a British pub.

Overall, it was a productive and informative visit, and we're looking forward to what's to come next in the ALCEMIST project!

/LWH/

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/