Microfluidics

 

Microfluidic channel in place for video microscopy.

Right: Schematic of microchannel, and example velocity profiles superposed on an actual image of the colloidal NIPA suspension.

From the labs of Profs. Doug Durian and Jerry Golub

 

Topological Insulators

This image shows the valence and conduction bands in the phase transition from topological insulator to conventional insulator with increasing tensile strain.

 

Alternatives to Dark Energy

Perhaps the deepest mystery in physics today is the origin of the accelerating expansion of the universe.  Professors Khoury and Trodden work, among other things, on the possibility that it is due to a dark sector with new light degrees of freedom.  Screening mechanisms, such as chameleon and symmetron, may explain why such scalars, if light, have escaped detection.

 

Premelting of Colloidal Crystals

Premelting is the localized loss of crystalline order at surfaces and defects at temperatures below the melting transition.  This result is from the lab of Prof. Arjun Yodh.

 

Bio-optics and bio-optical materials

Prof. Alison Sweeney and her colleagues believe that the reflective structures in giant clams help them grow algae. The clams use sub-wavelength structures formed from a protein called reflectin to optimize the photosynthesis of the algae living in the clam tissues.

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