Liquid Crystals Gordon Research Conference "Soft Order and Topology Motives in Biomedicine, Nanoscience, Cosmology, Living Matter and Emergent Industries"

本提案旨在为2019年7月7日至12日在美国新罕布什尔州新伦敦科尔比-索耶学院举行的2019年戈登液晶会议寻求支持。相关的戈登研究研讨会将于2019年7月6日至7日之前的周末举行。预计参加GRS的许多学生将继续参加GRC会议。GRS/GRC将汇集在液晶科学和技术前沿的研究人员的多元化跨学科社区，广泛定义。液晶与光的独特相互作用，特别是它们对激光束的响应，使人们能够控制它们的结构，并为技术应用开辟了许多可能性。由纳米或掺杂纳米颗粒组成的液晶在可调谐和频率选择性负折射率介质等新兴应用中具有很大的兴趣。这些新技术的发展与液晶基础科学中许多令人感兴趣的新问题密切相关。作为材料科学，生物学，软凝聚态物理，化学，光学和光子学的纽带，会议主题本质上是跨学科的。会议的重点将是软凝聚态物理、生物材料、生物技术和光学之间的界面的最新进展，这些进展有望开辟概念上的新研究方向。演讲者将被特别要求强调开放/新出现的问题和未解决的问题。理解具有液态结晶性的系统的基本物理、化学和生物学。该计划将包括通过实验，理论和模拟来解决这些主题的会谈，并且还将整合基础和应用观点。这次会议更广泛的影响在于它的结构。这次会议将采取峰会的形式，汇集了杰出的科学家、学生和博士后。会议将提供充分的机会来促进学生和初级研究人员之间的联系，与来自各个领域的许多顶尖科学家建立联系，并建立令人兴奋的新合作。受邀参加GRS和GRC的有大学教授、公司首席执行官、期刊编辑（如Nature Communications）、美国资助机构（NSF、DOD和DOE）的项目经理、国家实验室的组长等。与这些液晶研究领域的个人交流，将拓宽博士后和学生对未来职业选择的视野，拓宽他们对未来职业选择的视野。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This proposal seeks support for the 2019 Gordon Conference on Liquid Crystals to be held 7-12 July 2019 at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, NH, USA. The associated Gordon Research Seminar will take place on the weekend before, 6-7 July 2019. It is anticipated that many of the students attending the GRS will stay on for the GRC meeting. The GRS/GRC will bring together a diverse interdisciplinary community of researchers working at the frontiers of liquid crystal science and technology, broadly defined. The unique interaction of liquid crystals with light, and especially their response to laser beams, allows one to control their structure and opens numerous possibilities for technological applications. Liquid crystals composed of - or doped with - nano-sized particles are of a great interest for emerging new applications such as the tunable and frequency selective negative index media. The anticipated new technological developments are closely related to many interesting emerging problems in basic science of liquid crystals that attract great interest. Being at the nexus of materials science, biology, soft condensed matter physics, chemistry, optics, and photonics, the conference theme is inherently interdisciplinary.The conference focus will be on recent advances at the interface between soft condensed matter physics, biomaterials, biotechnology and optics that promise to open conceptually novel directions of research. The speakers will be specifically asked to emphasize the open/emerging questions and unsolved problems. Understanding the underlying physics, chemistry, and biology of systems that possess liquid crystallinity will be emphasized. The program will include talks that address these topics through experiment, theory and simulation, and it will also integrate fundamental and applied perspectives. The broader impacts of this conference lay in its structure. The conference will take the form of a summit, bringing together prominent scientists as well as students and postdoctoral fellows. The conference will provide ample opportunities to foster networking between students and junior researchers, to make connections with many of the leading scientists from a wide variety of fields, and to establish exciting new collaborations. Among invited participants at the GRS and GRC are University Professors, Company CEOs, Journal Editors (e.g. from Nature Communications), Program Managers from US funding agencies (NSF, DOD and DOE), Group Leaders at national laboratories, etc. Communications with these individuals in the research area of liquid crystals will broaden the perspectives of postdocs and students for future career options that they have for future career options.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.