Soft matter provides the basis of a wide range of consumer products (from skin creams to paints), yet our ability to predict dynamic interfacial phenomena that underlie the structure and function of many of these products remains primitive.  This presentation will explore how liquid crystalline oils can provide the basis of new methods to study and characterize non-equilibrium states of oil-water interfaces as well as create new designs of functional soft materials.   The presentation will begin by exploring surfactant-driven flows at interfaces of liquid crystals, revealing how liquid crystals enable optical characterization of the dynamic properties of surfactants at complex interfaces.   The presentation will end by illustrating how knowledge emerging from these studies is enabling the design of new classes of functional materials that can trigger the release of active agents in response to non-equilibrium interfacial states of liquid crystals.  Applications to the life sciences will be described, including the design of self-regulating soft materials that pass mechanical, chemical and optical information to and from living biological systems.

New approaches to understanding and designing complex fluid interfaces using liquid crystalline oils

ACS Spring 2022

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