All are cordially invited to attend a colloquium talk by Dr. Thomas Haxton, faculty candidate for the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Haxton will give his talk “Assembly Pathway Design for Hierarchically Structured Materials” on Thursday, February 19, at 4:10 pm in Webster room 17.
Abstract:
Self-assembly is a promising strategy for making advanced functional materials with structure on multiple length scales. Fully utilizing this strategy requires principles for designing and selecting pathways likely to lead to successful self-assembly. In the first part of this talk, I will discuss design rules for bottom-up self-assembly of hierarchically structured materials. Using a minimal computer model of a porous crystal as a simple example of a hierarchically structured material, I will discuss (1) how building block design selects assembly pathways and (2) how thermodynamic and kinetic effects determine which pathways lead to successful self-assembly. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss how bottom-up and top-down approaches can converge to design new pathways. Using experiments and simulations of polypeptoid bilayer nanosheets as an example, I will focus on the use of an interface as a physical catalyst for material transformation.
Please meet our guest speaker and share in refreshments, 3:45-4:10pm in the foyer on floor G above the lecture hall.
