The goal of this laboratory is to understand fundamental materials processes and to develop new ones. We specialize in the field of soft materials. The researchers in this group come from varied scientific disciplines, including chemistry, physics, materials science, and chemical engineering. This diversity of background and perspective helps to maintain a particularly stimulating environment. Students gain broad training in a variety of subjects and have many options of what to do after graduation.

Work is in progress in the following areas:

-- Phospholipid bilayers, vesicles, and nanoparticles

-- Self-assembly of novel, specially-designed colloidal particles

-- Watching polymers and other molecules diffuse in tight spots

-- Nano/microfluidics, lubrication; puzzles of how fluids flow

-- Water; hydrophobicity

Some experiments aim to measure single-molecule behavior, others to measure the ensemble average. Much of this is done with unique instruments available nowhere else, especially a combination of spectroscopy, optical imaging and nanomechanics. This enables us to contribute to a broad agenda of research problems -- in areas from energy to biology.

Click here to check our research movie gallery.