Self Assembly in Soft Matter Physics & Physical Oceanography

Patterned Materials: Colloidal Crystals as Templates for Photonic and Magnetic Applications

We are interested in the properties of materials made from colloidal templates of varying degrees of crystallinity.

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Photonics Applications: Micron-scale materials with a spatial modulation of the refractive index exhibit a dramatic interaction with incident light when the periodicity of the modulation is commensurate with the wavelength of light. Control of defects and vacancies in colloidal crystals is the major challenge! We plan to use tunable colloidal interactions to control defects in colloidal crystals.

Magnetics Applications: Micron-scale and nanoscale structured magnetic materials also have great potential in memory storage applications. We use the spin-coating technique to make robust colloidal crystals. We have established that we can grow magnetic materials through these periodic colloidal structures to make patterned magnetic materials