AMLCI Materials Day 2027 "Ferroelectric Nematics"
Friday - April 23, 2027
AMLCI Fellowship Awards
(AM)LCI Distinguished Alumni Award
AMLCI Fellowships & Alumni Award Ceremony
Glenn H. Brown Fellowship: For outstanding graduate students who are engaged in research on biological or biology related topics of liquid crystals.
Alfred Saupe Fellowship: For outstanding graduate students working on physics or material sciences of liquid crystals
James Fergason Fellowship: For outstanding graduate students working on applied research using liquid crystals.
Saturday - April 24, 2027
Keynote Lecture: Richard Mandle
Invited Speakers & Poster Session
When & Where
Materials Day 2027 will take place on April 23rd and 24th 2027, in Samsung Auditorium in the Liquid Crystal Materials Science Building (LCM-101) on 蹤獲扦's Kent Campus. The street address is 1425 Lefton Esplanade, Kent, Ohio.
Parking locations near the building are noted below with red markers. The Samsung Auditorium is in the north wing of the building on the first floor, indicated by a yellow arrow.
Theme
The theme of AMLCI Materials Day 2027 (MD27) is Ferroelectric Nematics.
Keynote Speaker
Saturday, April 24th - Samsung Auditorium (LCM Building)
Richard Mandle
University of Leeds (UK)
UKRI Future Leaders Fellow School of Chemistry
School of Physics and Astronomy
Richard Mandle is an academic at the University of Leeds (UK), where he holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship with a joint appointment between the School of Chemistry and the School of Physics and Astronomy. His work with liquid crystals began with his PhD at the University of York, under the supervision of Professor John Goodby FRS. Today, his research spans fluid ferroelectric materials, materials and devices for AR/VR technology, combining continuous-flow synthesis with direct ink writing 3D printing of liquid crystal elastomers, and developing deep learning tools for liquid crystals and soft materials.
Fluid Ferroelectrics: From Curiosities to a Materials Platform
Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals combine the ability to flow with spontaneous electrical polarisation comparable to that of some solid-state ferroelectrics. This unusual combination opens new possibilities for controlling how materials interact with light and respond to electric fields, but realising this potential requires us to move from discovering materials to designing them.
In this talk, I will outline how our work has helped establish fluid ferroelectrics as a bona fide materials platform, with molecular design rules grounded in systematic experiments. I will show how seemingly small changes in molecular structure can determine whether polar order emerges, its stability, and the form it takes. I will also discuss how we are developing machine learning methods to connect experimental data with the design of new molecules, building towards a credible data-to-molecules pipeline.
Finally, I will consider how this growing control over molecular structure and material properties can support the development of useful formulations and devices, and what still needs to be solved to take fluid ferroelectrics from laboratory discoveries to practical materials.
Featured Speaker
Saturday, April 24th - Samsung Auditorium (LCM Building)
TBA
