Speaker
Description
The controlled transport and assembly of colloidal cargo within confined micro-environments is a challenging endeavor with significant implications for both technological applications and fundamental science. To achieve directed motion, both self-propelled and externally driven colloidal particles and droplets must be guided by breaking fore-aft symmetry in a controlled manner. Liquid crystals offer a promising approach for this purpose due to their intrinsic anisotropy and the ability to manipulate their orientation using external electromagnetic fields.
In this presentation, I will discuss our experiments where non-spherical colloidal particles are propelled in a nematic liquid crystal layer using alternating electric fields, while we control their direction of motion and clustering with a permanent magnetic field. Additionally, this approach can be applied to propel and steer stable solitons, known as spherulites or "baby-skyrmions." These structures can be reversibly generated within the liquid crystal layer, acting as colloidal quasiparticles with complex interactions and transport modes, demonstrating their potential to carry passive colloidal cargo effectively.
