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.
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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!
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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!
On 7 April, we in Luxembourg hosted the second ALCEMIST workshop! We welcomed our collaborators from the University of Cambridge and NOVA University of Lisbon as well as some of our other partners and collaborators (Apala Majumdar from the University of Manchester and Attila Dubecz from Helios Klinikum) to discuss the current state of the many prongs of the ALCEMIST project. Not only was it nice to bring the whole team together physically (including our newly joined ALCEMIST team members), but we also enjoyed glorious spring weather for the occasion.
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Congratulations to Zory and Jan on their latest publication, "Orientational ordering benefits nanorod sonication", which
went online today in Physical Review Materials! A work very long in the making, this is a systematic study of the interplay between sonication and ordering in suspensions of rods (in particular, the cellulose nanocrystals we use) and how phase transitions ultimately affect the behavior of the suspensions (even after returning to the "original" state).
The article is free to read (and download) online.
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Congratulations to ESMP alumna Deniz Avşar and ESMP overlord Jan on their newest publication in
Advanced Optical Materials, "
Circularly Polarized Structural Color Pigments Tunable Across the Full Visible Spectrum"! In this work, inspired in part by jewel beetles, Deniz and Jan (though especially Deniz) explore the camouflaging of patterns sensitive to circular polarization by using cholesteric spherical reflectors. By color mixing and dye infusion, they achieved color combinations that are virtually invisible to the unaided eye, but become very apparent when viewed through circular polarizers (like some of the glasses used for watching 3D movies in 3D).
The article is open access and free to read; a great start to 2026.
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With the new year, it is our pleasure to now welcome two new ESMP postdocs and a new visiting scientist: Yvonne Zagzag, Amina Alizade, and Mónica Arenas Correa!
Yvonne is a recently graduated Physics Ph.D. who joins us from Prof. Chinedum Osuji's group at the University of Pennsylvania. She joins us within the ALCEMIST project as a postdoc working at the intersection of theory and experiments, combining her theoretical knowhow with the many experiments in the project (and especially on fluid flow).
Originally from Georgia (the country), Amina joins us after her Ph.D. research in the group of Dr. Anne Jantschke at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, where she worked with cellulose extracted from dinoflagellates. Her role will be as the main chemist on the ALCEMIST project, working to develop the chemical tools and protocols to create cellulose-based liquid crystal elastomeric materials.
Mónica is the CEO of our spin-off company Trace Crystal and has joined ESMP as a visiting scientist to work further on developing the technology fueling the innovations at the company. (Hakam will still be with us, but in a different role.)
Häerzlech Wëllkomm!
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