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.

/LWH/

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.

/LWH/

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.

/LWH/

As many of us have already started heading off for the holidays far and near, we here at ESMP want to wish you a very Happy and relaxing holiday period and an equally Happy New Year!

This year was quite busy (four Ph.D. defenses, among other things), and next year looks to be differently busy, but in a good way. While we say farewell to some of our (long-time) group members, we welcomed some new ones, welcomed back some others, and got started on two big new projects (ALCEMIST and BriCE). While it's always hard to predict what the new year will bring, we're definitely excited to see what's ahead.

See you next year!

/LWH/