Designing and Understanding Soft Materials by Computer Simulation

Soft materials - such as colloidal gels, emulsions and liquid crysta!s are,  encountered daily in products ranging from foodstuffs and cosmetics to mobile phone displays. This talk will highlight the role of computer simulations in the design and understanding of new soft materials whose function depends on their supramolecular structure, such as the interacting fluid domains in an emulsion, or the defect patterns in a liquid crystal. Professor Cates will focus on two systems where large scale simulations, using a coarse-grained 'hydrodynamic' description, have provided important scientific insights. These are (i) 'bijels' - a new form of soft solid containing interpenetrating domains of two immiscible solvents and (2) blue phases' of liquid crystals.