Our understanding of the “long range” electrodynamic, electrostatic, and polar interactions which dominate the organization of small objects at distances beyond an interatomic bond length is reviewed. From this basic forces perspective, a large number of systems are described from which one can learn about these organizing forces and how to modulate them. The many practical systems that harness these nanoscale forces are then surveyed. The survey reveals not only the promise of new devices and materials, but also the possibility of designing them more effectively.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2252388
In the most prestigious physical journal Reviews of Modern Physics, we review the twenty-year research related to antiferroelectric liquid crystals and give an overview of possible applications. “Antiferroelectric liquid crystals” is the common name for smectic phases formed of chiral elongated molecules that exhibit a number of tilted structures with variation of the strong-tilt azimuthal direction from layer to layer. The phases have varying crystallographic unit periodicity from two to a few smectic layers, which are 2D liquids. We describe the discovery of these phases and various methods used for their identification and to determine their structures and their properties. We also give a theoretical description of these systems; discussed in detail is the discrete phenomenological model as its predictions are most consistent with experimental results.
COBISS.SI-ID: 23506727
We theoretically studied a simple mechanism of quasicrystal formation in polymeric and related soft nanocolloidal systems. We explored a system of two-dimensional hard disks decorated with steplike squareshoulder repulsion that mimics, for example, the soft alkyl shell around the aromatic core in dendritic micelles. We find a family of quasicrystals with 10-, 12-, 18- and 24- fold bond orientational order which originate from mosaics of equilateral and isosceles triangles formed by particles arranged core-to-core and shoulder-to-shoulder. Most of the observed phases are novel, and we also present a tiling theory to explain their structure and stability.
COBISS.SI-ID: 27499815
By engineering of an electronic structure in a semiconducting film by blending two molecular components, a photocromic diarylethene derivative and a polyhexyltiophene matrix, we attained phototunable and bistable energy levels for the hole transport in the matrix. As a proof-of-concept we exploited this blend as a semiconducting material in organic thin-film transistors. The device illumination at defined wavelengths enabled reversible tuning of the diarylethene's electronic states in the blend, which resulted in modulation of the output current. This modular blending approach allows for the convenient incorporation of various molecular components, which opens up perspectives on multifunctional devices and logic circuits.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2411003
We developed a novel experimental method for the study of flaccid lipid membranes. The method is based on a microfluidic diffusion chamber which allows for a rapid and controlled exchange of chemical environment around biological samples solely by means of diffusion in the absence of hydrodynamic flow. We demonstrated a controlled solution exchange around membrane nanotubes pulled out of giant lipid vesicles by optical tweezers.
COBISS.SI-ID: 28925145