Host: Dan Beller Controlling chaotic advection in 2D active nematicsRecent years have seen a surge of interest in active materials, in which energy injected at the microscale gives rise to mesoscale coherent motion. One prominent example is an active 2D "liquid crystal" composed of microtubules in the nematic phase. The activity is generated by molecular […]
Strong correlation effects are believed to be the driving force behind many novel quantum phases and exotic phenomena, such as strange metallicity. They become pronounced when the electrostatic repulsive interaction is larger than, or at least comparable to the kinetic energy. This regime naturally materializes in f-electron-based heavy fermion metals, as well as in d-electron-based […]
Investigating charge-structure coupling in soft materials for information processing and actuation. We will discuss the thermodynamics of information, compare the efficiency of different information processing architectures (CPU vs. brain), and explore the rich physics when electrostatics, elasticity, and hydrodynamics are coupled on the nanoscale. This will be illustrated by charge-regulation in polymers, DNA packing in […]