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INTERACT
ESMP News

New Paper in Materials by MDPI Journals

15 March 2018

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(Click the graphical abstract above to read the article online, it is Open-Access)



Congratulations to Anshul & Jan on the publication in Materials: “Electrospun Composite Liquid Crystal Elastomer Fibers”!

This is the first study to date that shows and analyzes the irreversible actuation of photo-crosslinkable reactive mesogens single axially electrospun with a carrier polymer, to create liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fibers. Don't forget to check out the supplementary info for more details!






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New Langmuir Paper Released Online

19 February 2018

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(Click the graphical abstract image above to access the article online, please email either Jan or Rao if you cannot download the pdf file)


Congratulations to Larry & Rao on the publication in Langmuir titled: “Microfluidic Tensiometry Technique for the Characterization of the Interfacial Tension between Immiscible Liquids”!

This is Larry's 1st paper in our group (!) and also Rao's 1st time serving as last author on a paper (!)

In this study, Larry and Rao borrow inspiration from the biologists and use the novel technique of micropipette aspiration (commonly used to measure the viscoelastic properties of living cells) to measure the interfacial tension of 5CB, water, and surfactants with a high degree of accuracy (from the sub-millinewton per meter to several hundred millinewton per meter range) solely from experimental observations of the droplet deformation. This is highly unique as information on the liquid density is not needed to find the interfacial tension.




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New Post-Doc! Manos Anyfantakis joins the team

11 July 2017
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We're happy to welcome our new post-doc: Manos Anyfantakis! He officially joined the ESMP team at the start of July, and will mainly be working on advancing projects related to hydrodynamic flows, kinetic arrest, LC structure formation in the CNC work we have happening. He received his masters applied molecular spectroscopy in 2007, earned a phd in chemistry in Greece in 2010, and has since travelled to Germany and France for postdocs on the wetting of surfactant solutions and optofluidics phenomena before finally joining us in Luxembourg. You can contact Manos via e-mail here.





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New Phd Students! Anjali & Shameek

11 July 2017
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Welcome to both Anjali (left) and Shameek (right) who have joined our team as phd students starting in July.
Anjali will be working on making LC shells for advancing bio-related projects, while Shameek will be working on finding new polymers for advancing applications related to electrospun LC-fibers.



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New paper on gas sensing with liquid crystal core microfibers

06 August 2016
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Congrats to Catherine and Anshul, whose paper on non-electronic toluene vapor sensing using electrospun PVP fibers filled with nematic 5CB liquid crystal is now available (Open Access) from the Liquid Crystals website. In the article they demonstrate that there are two types of response to toluene vapor exposure, one slow and one fast. The slow one corresponds to a toluene diffusion-induced clearing transition, whereas the fast one is connected to a change in liquid crystal director field configuration, but the 5CB remains in the nematic phase. This fast response is seen across the mat within a fraction of a second, even several centimeters away from the exposure point, indicating that the detection threshold is very low. They also show that the responses of uniformly cylindrical fibers and beaded fibers are quite different, the latter allowing detection by the naked eye, without polarizers. Download the paper (no subscription needed) here.

Jan is awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant

13 March 2015
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On the 12th of March 2015 the European Research Council (ERC) publicized the list of this year's Consolidator Grant winners, making it official that Jan's proposal INTERACT was selected for support. The support means that for the next five years the Experimental Soft Matter Physics group will be working very actively on wearable technology, soft robotics and innovative techniques for secure authentication. As the project gets going (current projected starting date is 1st of April 2015) there will be many updates.