Sourav Mondal: Transport in liquid crystal hydrodynamics: colloids and interfaces

Sourav Mondal: Transport in liquid crystal hydrodynamics: colloids and interfaces

Liquid crystals are special class of anisotropic liquids which exhibits distinctive colloidal interactions mediated by defects and non-local field effects. In this seminar, I will show how the colloidal particle migration and its transport is influenced by the induced hydrodynamics and the externally imposed field, for passive and active systems. The behaviour of the colloidal self-assembly and the associated defect structures reveal the non-intuitive dynamics of the system. The non-equilibrium physics is studied in three dimensions using the lattice boltzmann method. The relative contribution of the different forces indicates when does the two-way coupled problem (the particle motion affects the LC field around it, which affects the stress in the flow field, and it subsequently impacts the particle convection) is biased by the external field or the nematic or viscous stresses. Later in the presentation, I want to show how, the interfacial interactions, being manifested in the form of unique birefringent patterns, is leveraged for application to sensing platform in low concentration detection of molecules - a proof-of-concept design for the label-free rapid sensor (as a prospective single-use low cost clinical diagnostic kit to detect complex biomolecules).