Soft Matter Physics – Seminar

A list of seminar topics and related literature is found in the accompanying moodle.

10 seminars with 2 talks à 15min + 5min discussion

Assessment criteria

• clarity of the central motivation
• explanation of the methodological approach/technique
• presentation of the main results
• answer to questions
• layout of slides and structure of presentation
• talks present a paper & explain the key technique

Paper presentations

Thu 30.04.20

• Instantaneous Velocity of a Brownian particle / Optical trap
• Anomalous Diffusion / Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS)

Thu 07.05.20

• Measurement of Weak Repulsive and Frictional Colloidal Forces RICM / TIRF
• Geometry-induced electrostatic trapping of nanometric objects in a fluid / iSCAT

Thu 14.05.20 

• Single molecule trapping / Electrokinetic trap
• Why molecules move along a temperature gradient / Thermophoresis

Thu 21.05.20: Holiday

Thu 28.05.20

• Conformation and Self-Diffusion of Single DNA Molecules / Quantitative image analysis
• Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy on Polysaccharides / Force Spectroscopy

Thu 04.06.20

• The Elasticity of a Single Supercoiled DNA Molecule / Magnetic Tweezers
• DNA nanostar networks / Parallel plate-rheology

Thu 11.06.20: Holiday

Thu 18.06.20

• Passive micro-rheology / Passive micro-rheology
• Magnetically responsive ferrofluid microdroplets as local mechanical actuators / magnetic fluids

Thu 25.06.20

• Sub-micron phase coexistence in small-molecule organic thin films / Reflectometry + SNOM
• Entropically driven self-assembly and interaction in suspension / Optical trap

Thu 02.07.20

• Polymersomes: Tough Vesicles Made from Diblock Copolymers / Micro-pipette
• Liquid phase condensation: An emerging paradigm of cellular organization / Image analysis

Thu 09.07.20

• Three-Dimensional Imaging Near the Colloidal Glass Transition / Particle tracking
• Self assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes / SAXS

Thu 16.07.20 EXAM (see also details on page exercise classes/exam)

Thu 23.07.20

• Living Crystals of Light-Activated Colloidal Surfers / Image Analysis
• Nonequilibrium Mechanics of Active Cytoskeletal Networks / Micro-rheology
• Multiplexed 3D Cellular Super-Resolution Imaging / PAINT superresolution
• mRNA Nanopartikels / cryo TEM + SAXS