| Wed November 2nd 2016 16:30 – 17:00 ZH286 | Seminar | From Liquid Crystals to Granular Matter Kirsten Harth |
Details:As I have recently started my Postdoc in the PoF Group, I would like to introduce myself and my previous research at the University of Magdeburg in this seminar lecture. The seminar will not go into much detail on each topic, I would rather like to provide a brief overview of my previous experience to find maybe new connection points for projects, discussions etc with you.I collected my first research experiences were with smectic liquid crystals, materials which have the fascinating property that they can form homogeneous nanometer-thin free-standing films, which are long-term stable. These films are useful for investigating the effects of confinement e.g. on phase transitions, pattern formation, or flow behavior of in-plane isotropic and anisotropic fluids. Similar to soap films, one can prepare sessile or free-floating bubbles, even shells submerged in aqueous surfactant solutions. When shape relaxation or rupture dynamics are investigated, the immense influence of the internal structure becomes evident, leading to a behavior intermediate between simple fluids and elastic membranes. Apart from this, I was investigating granular materials is several experiments. One especially interesting systems are granular gases, loose ensembles of grains. In both fields, we performed a number of experiments in micro-gravity, using the drop tower, parabolic flights, sounding rockets and the ISS. | ||
