Description:

Understanding the microscopic chemical and physical principles that control organization and self-assembly in non-equilibrium conditions remains an important problem in statistical mechanics. In this talk, I will describe recent work from my group that elucidates how non-equilibrium forces can be used to achieve novel self-assembly, functionality and organization in a variety of chemical and biological systems. I will focus in particular on two new non-equilibrium thermodynamic frameworks developed in the group and show how these can be used to achieve  control over morphologies, material properties and self-assembly in wide range of microscopic non-equilibrium systems. Together, our results lay the framework for a general set of thermodynamic principles to control transport, assembly and organization in a broad class of non-equilibrium systems.

Professor Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan, University of Chicago

Host: Michelle Driscoll

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Complex Systems