U.S.-Netherlands Cooperative Research on Colloids and Liquid Crystals

该奖项支持教授罗伯特迈耶和塞思弗莱登， 布兰迪斯大学的一些研究生 与H. N. W. Lekkerkerker和他的化学系小组 荷兰乌得勒支大学。 两组有 液晶领域的互补专业知识（美国） 方）和胶体（荷兰方），并有重叠的利益 在形成液晶的胶体领域。 联合 将对专门材料进行研究， 每个实验室都是专家，为了提高 了解这些重要的系统。 比如说 布兰迪斯集团最近一直在研究丝状 对磁场敏感的噬菌体病毒 诱导排序 乌得勒支小组已经能够合成 晶体勃姆石的棒状胶体颗粒， 开发了制备胶体颗粒的专业知识， 专业有机涂料。 这些研究方向 在目前的杆状病毒研究合作中， 胶体颗粒在悬浮液中形成有序状态， 液体。 合作者将通过实验控制 胶体颗粒的性质及其相互作用，以及 将对系统进行详细的理论分析。 胶体和液晶的话题是一个越来越多的 重要性，作为复杂流体及其 应用程序增长。 除了对自己的生活感兴趣 是的，许多重要应用的基础， 技术和工业，这些胶体系统作为模型 测试许多其他重要的基本思想的系统 物理系统。

This award supports Professors Robert Meyer and Seth Fraden and some graduate students of Brandeis University to collaborate in studies of colloids and liquid crystals with Professor H. N. W. Lekkerkerker and his group of the Chemistry Department of the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. The two groups have complementary expertise in the field of liquid crystals (U.S. side) and colloids (Dutch side) and have overlapping interests in the area of colloids which form liquid crystals. Joint research will be carried out on specialized materials on which each of the laboratories is expert, in order to advance understanding of these important systems. For example, the Brandeis group has been working recently on filamentous bacteriophage viruses that are susceptible to magnetic field induced ordering. The Utrecht group has been able to synthesize rod-like colloidal particles of the crystal Boehmite, and has developed expertise in preparing colloidal particles with specialized organic coatings. These lines of research come together in the current collaboration in studies of rod-like colloidal particles which form ordered states in suspension in a liquid. The collaborators will experimentally control the properties of the colloidal particles and their interaction, and will make a detailed theoretical analysis of the systems. The topic of colloids and liquid crystals is one of increasing importance, as the field of complex fluids and their applications grow. As well as being interesting in their own right, and the basis of many important applications in technology and industry, these colloidal systems serve as model systems for testing fundamental ideas about many other important physical systems.