Soft matter, colloidal assembly and microfluidics

Soft matter in the form of suspensions, foams and emulsions are fascinating materials of scientific and technological relevance. Moreover, such soft materials are often used as intermediates during the fabrication of a wide range of products and offer the opportunity to effectively control the multiscale structure of materials through colloidal assembly routes. To exploit soft matter as a means to achieve structural control, we study the manipulation and colloidal assembly of particles into three-dimensional structures under external magnetic and electrical fields, the adsorption of surface active molecules and particles at liquid interfaces, and the colloidal behavior of complex particle/molecule mixtures inside droplets and in the bulk liquid phase. Because it allows for unprecedented structural control of templating multiple emulsions and foams, we also use microfluidic devices to generate compartmentalized matter in the form of microcapsules. Our primary goal is to develop new processing strategies that will provide us with powerful tools for the fabrication of hybrid functional materials whose internal structure resembles the rich architectures found in the natural world.