Description:

Inspired by the remarkable properties of the biological cytoskeleton which is driven away from equilibrium by a conserved set of protein nanomachines, our goal is to rationally develop soft active materials using animate energy-consuming building blocks such as molecular motors and microtubule filaments. We first describe structural and dynamical properties of microtubule based 2D active nematic liquid crystals. In particular, we characterize how circular confinements induce transition from a chaotic dynamics to coherent circularly flowing states. Subsequently, we describe methods to assemble 3D active nematic liquid crystals and our ongoing efforts to characterize both the structure and dynamics of the topological defects found in these materials. Our results illustrate how active matter can serve as a platform for testing theoretical models of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, developing a new class of soft machines and potentially even shedding light on self-organization processes occurring in living cells.

Professor Zvonimir Dogic, U.C. Santa Barbara

Host: Michelle Driscoll

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Complex Systems