Ravi Kumar Pujala – Self-Assembly of Colloids in Isotropic and Anisotropic Media

Department of Physics, IISER, Tirupati, India

Dispersions of colloidal particles in nematic liquid crystals show new classes of interparticle forces, which are anisotropic, long-range, and several thousand times stronger than van der Waals forces in water-based colloids [1-5]. These forces are responsible for a variety of new self-assembled colloidal microstructures, which cannot be observed in isotropic solvents, such as chains of microspheres and cellular soft solid materials. In this talk, I will present our recent results on the interactions, self-assembly, shape asymmetry, electrophoretic propulsion, bound and metastable states of anisotropic nano and microparticles in nematic liquid crystals [6-10]. 

References:

1. C Tom, VMSG Tanuku, E Paineau, RK Pujala, ACS Applied Nano Materials 4 (8), 8586 (2021).
2. RK Pujala, HB Bohidar, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 554, 731-742 (2019).
3. LR Kumbam, et al. Nanoscale 14, 4946-4956 (2022).
4. SN Sangitra, RK Pujala, Soft Matter 19, 5869-5879 (2023).
5. P More, SN Sangitra, HB B, RK Pujala, The Journal of Chemical Physics 157, 214902 (2022).
6. M Rasi, S Archana, RK Pujala, S Dhara, Soft matter 18, 6043-6050 (2022)
7. M Rasi M., RK Pujala, S Paladugu, S Dhara Phys. Rev. E 104 (1), 014706 (2021).
8. DV Sudhakaran, RK Pujala, S Dhara, Advanced Optical Materials 8 (7), 1901585 (2020).
9. M Rasi, RK Pujala, S Dhara, Scientific Reports 9 (1), 1-11 (2019).
10. F Hagemans et al,. Chemistry of Materials 31 (2), 521–531 (2019).