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New frontiers in anisotropic fluid-particle composites

28 - 29 June 2012 09:00 - 17:00

 

Theo Murphy international scientific meeting organised by Dr Susanne Klein, Professor Peter Raynes FRS and Professor Roy Sambles FRS

Event details

This conference will bring together world leaders plus young researchers in two areas: isotropic particles in anisotropic liquid crystals and colloidal liquid crystals (clay platelets or carbon nanotubes in isotropic fluids for example). These two areas of modern materials research are rich in complex science and have substantial applications potential ranging from e-inks through to biofluidics.

Biographies of the organisers and speakers are available below. Audio recordings of the presentations are freely available and the programme can be downloaded here. Papers will be published in a future issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Organisers

  • Dr Susanne Klein, Hewlett-Packard, UK

    "After gaining a diploma in theoretical physics and a PhD in medical physics at the University of Saarland in Germany Susanne Klein spent a year at the University of Frankfurt as a German Telecom research fellow looking into the effects of geometric phases in optics and telecommunication. In 1995 she moved to the University of Bristol to work with Sir Michael Berry FRS on problems in polarization optics. She stayed there for three years as a Royal Society Research Assistant. Since then she has been working in HP Labs, first on the optical characterization of liquid crystal director fields, then on colloidal liquid crystals and colloids in liquid crystals and recently she has moved into the field of material research for 3D and 2.5D printing. For the last 10 years she has been a visiting research fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol and has had the privilege to supervise a number of bright PhD students. "

  • Professor Peter Raynes FRS, University of York, UK

    "

    Following degrees in Physics at Cambridge, Peter Raynes joined the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (now part of QinetiQ) at Malvern in 1971 to work on liquid crystals materials and devices. In 1992 he moved to the Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd at Oxford, where he was Director of Research until he took up to the Chair of Optoelectronics in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University in 1998. In 2010 he retired from Oxford and moved to York, where he is now a Leverhulme Emeritus Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry. Throughout his research career he has worked on liquid crystal materials and displays. He has been responsible for many device inventions; some are still in widespread use and have enabled mobile phones and laptop PCs. He has also worked with chemists at Hull University and BDH (now part of Merck) helping develop several highly successful ranges of liquid crystal materials; these gained two Queen’s Awards for Technological Achievement.

    "

  • Professor Roy Sambles FRS, University of Exeter, UK

    Professor John Roy Sambles FRS, studied Physics at Imperial College London, obtaining a first class honours degree in 1967 and a PhD in solid state physics in 1970. In 2002 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society for his contribution to a broad range of research on the fundamentals of melting, spin waves in metals, molecular rectification, liquid crystal optics and plasmonics. He has supervised 75 PhD students and published over 500 papers in international journals. Latest among several awards has been the Faraday medal of the Institute of Physics in 2012.

    At Exeter he leads the Electromagnetic and Acoustic Materials research team, exploring the response of electromagnetic and acoustic Metamaterials, and is also Director of the large EPSRC funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Electromagnetic Metamaterials, which commenced in April 2014. He is currently President Elect of the Institute of Physics.