[Slaam] SLAAM Seminar Monday, Aug 7, 9am Pacific: Biswarup Ash (Weizmann Institute)

Tue Aug 1 08:52:14 PDT 2023

Dear enthusiasts of the SLAAM seminars,

We are excited to announce that the next Soft Living Active and Adaptive Matter (SLAAM)<https://physics.ucmerced.edu/slaam> seminar will be given by Dr. Biswarup Ash (Weizmann Institute) on Monday, August 7, at 9am Pacific/11am Central/12 noon Eastern time (US), with the title:

“Tunable three-dimensional architecture of nematic disclination lines”

Please join at the link below to attend:

https://ucmerced.zoom.us/j/92693607475?pwd=TnI5dDhRRnYvejNZK2xNN0s4M0R5UT09

Zoom Meeting ID: 926 9360 7475   |   Passcode: 223642

As usual, there will be a 15 min informal Q&A at the end of the hour. Graduate students will have an opportunity to interact with the speaker in an informal setting during the "Meet the speaker" timeslot just after the talk. Please join if the time works for you.

Please see more info in the flyer here<https://physics.ucmerced.edu/sites/physics.ucmerced.edu/files/event/SLAAM/biswarup_ash_slaam.pdf> and in the text below:

Abstract: Topological defects are universal patterns of nature. Nematic liquid crystals- fluid-like materials with long-range orientational molecular order- are ideal test beds for studying topological defects, particularly one-dimensional, linear disclinations. Disclination lines in nematic liquid crystal systems often exhibit intricate spatial structures with nontrivial morphology. Achieving versatile control over disclinations is critical to developing novel electro-optical devices, programmable origami, directed colloidal assembly, and controlling active matter. In this talk, I will discuss a theoretical framework enabling us to tailor three-dimensional disclination architecture in nematic liquid crystals. We produce quantitative predictions for the connectivity and shape of disclination lines found in nematic liquid crystals confined between two thinly spaced glass substrates with strong patterned planar anchoring. By drawing an analogy between nematic liquid crystals and magnetostatics, we find that i) disclination lines connect defects with the same topological charge on opposite surfaces and ii) disclination lines are attracted to regions of the highest twist. We identify critical parameters that tune the disclination lines’ curvature. Our theoretical findings corroborate the numerical and experimental observations. Our work provides a powerful method to understand and practically control defect lines in nematic liquid crystals.

Speaker bio
Dr. Ash obtained his Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)-Kolkata, India, under the supervision of Prof. Amit Ghosal. In his Ph.D. thesis, he studied the role of interaction and disorder in understanding the static and dynamic responses of ‘Wigner molecules’- two-dimensional systems of Coulomb interacting particles in traps- across thermal crossover from an amorphous solid- to liquid-like behaviors. His main objective was to understand how some of the characteristic features of glassy systems emerge in confined systems with lower spatial symmetries and long-range interactions. After finishing his Ph.D., he joined the condensed matter physics department of the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel, as a postdoctoral research fellow. Here, he studied the thermal transport in low dimensional disordered systems with Prof. Yoseph Imry and Prof. Yuval Oreg. Subsequently, he moved to the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at WIS to work with Prof. Hillel Aharoni. His current research focuses on understanding the properties of topological defects in liquid crystal systems.

See you there!

Best regards,

Dan Beller

on behalf of the SLAAM organizing team
(Alexandra Tayar, Suraj Shankar, Daniel Beller, Kinjal Dasbiswas)

To join the SLAAM mailing list, please sign up here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_forms_d_e_1FAIpQLScTyzEuuE7TfrrapgP4tzN-5FoPSqbBhURUxa9-2Dzc8USnY1IPzA_viewform&d=DwMFAw&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=6T170XR90Za4-nl9r1e8-WfEJbvH5g5hJbA9UumqfWQ&m=NK4EGo1VvrDiYSxdvOUJXgCkEAzTrQzNpQi-P59LZiKL_lMA3briJm9KQh9Y3suN&s=3hc1lEhiJwBLtMEr12Z9K5XtZaVlEfOZKYXGtXCjRDg&e=>. If you’re a postdoc interested in giving a SLAAM talk, we invite you to register your interest on that webform.

Daniel Beller
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins University
pages.jh.edu/dbeller3
(he/him/his)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ucmerced.edu/pipermail/slaam/attachments/20230801/b208165d/attachment.htm>