Michael Cates on active colloids (plenary session)
I arrived late and missed some of this talk, plus I'm not a specialist in the area of active colloids. What I found interesting is the search for the minimal modification of the various Hohenberg-Halperin models (B and H) that yield interesting behaviour; I still haven't understood how breaking the time-reversal symmetry comes into play. Here is a reference I promised myself I would read on the flight back home.
Parallel session on topics 5 and 6 (roughly, inorganic colloids)
Two talks on secondary structures in gold nanoparticle systems with potential applications to SERS:
- Christian Kuttner (Dresden University) discussed the protein-mediated formation of raspberry-shaped gold clusters consisting of small particles adsorbed onto larger ones. Nice SAXS measurements reveal the presence of both particle populations.
- Joachim Koetz (Potsdam University) presented the growth of small (hemi)spherical gold clusters on triangular gold nanosheets. Several notable publications, on the synthesis of the platelets (followed by time-resolved SAXS), on their surface deposition for catalysis and detection applications and on the study of their vibrational modes using ultrafast X-ray diffraction (in collaboration with the group of Matias Bargheer.)
- Laura Rossi (Utrecht University) on the self-assembly of hematite cubes (paper not yet published).
- Golnaz Isapour (Fribourg University, in the group of Marco Lattuada) on color-changing materials based on responsive polymers (pNIPAM for temperature and PVP for pH).
Aside from the nice work, the last talk also references a paper on Color change in chameleons, from which I learned that structures that generate structural colors are called iridophores (great name!), in contrast with the pigment-bearing chromatophores. I have already written about structural colors on this blog.
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