Science / Technology - Colloquium
Monday, February 23, 2009
4:00 PM-5:00 AM
Olin Hall
107
Nematic liquid crystals (NLCs), the electrically responsive fluid behind most of the flat panel displays, consist of anisotropic molecules that possess long range orientational correlation but lack positional order. In recent years, there have been significant advances leading to discovery of a much sought-after biaxial nematic LC and in unconventional applications of the classical (uniaxial) nematic in photonics, sensors, and diagnostics. Two such advances will be discussed, one of enormous basic scientific interest with potential to give rise to a transformative technology and the second to enable hitherto unexplored technological applications of the well known NLCs.
The use of x-ray diffraction technique to probe structural features of the nematic phase of bent-core molecules will be discussed. Experimental results, combined with the ab-initio calculations of the molecular form factor and structure factor have led to the discovery of the biaxial nematic phase in thermotropic mesogens. The biaxial nematic holds the potential of leading to new generation display technology that will be 100 times faster than current HDTVs. Application of NLCs in rapid viral detection will be discussed in the second half of the presentation. Surfaces decorated with enveloped viruses promote vertical (homeotropic) alignment of NLCs. Unique nature of the interaction between the enveloped viruses and NLCs has been exploited to detect, amplify, and confirm the presence of viruses. Electrokinetic effects associated with a non-uniform AC field have been employed to accelerate the transport of viruses to the surface. The combination of these two approaches has been used to enable rapid (~10 min) detection of viruses, much faster than the incubation time at clinically relevant concentrations.
Cost: FREE
Sponsored by: WPI Physics Department, Dr. Izabela Stroe
Suggested Audiences: College
E-mail:
izabela@wpi.edu
Phone: 508-831-5249
Last Modified: January 30, 2009 at 12:02 PM
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