Soft matter with tunable interactions

Stanislav Yurchenko – Chief Researcher at Scientific and Educational center “Photonics and IR-Technology“, Professor of Physics Department at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. Soft matter with tunable interactions between particles: The Laboratory for the physics of liquids, crystals, and materials of the future. Soft matter is ubiquitous. Liquids, polymers, protein solutions, emulsions, and colloidal systems (microparticles dispersed in molecular fluids), cells and bacteria are examples of soft matter. Many molecular-like phenomena can be observed in real time in colloidal systems, including crystallisation, condensation, gelation, and glass transition. Individual particles play the role of “atoms“, assembling complex structures around themselves only due to their interactions with each other. If the colloidal system is placed in external electric, magnetic, thermal, or light fields, the interaction between the individual particles can be tuned. Soft matter wit