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Date: 27 October - 1 November 2008 - Erice ITALY

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15^th Workshop

Liquid Crystal Phases and Nano-Structures

A Workshop to celebrate ten years of the International Liquid Crystal School
and Claudio Zannoni 60^th birthday

Directors od the Workshop: Dr. P.Pasini, Prof. S.Zumer

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Schedule (download PDF)

27 October

afternoon: Arrival

21.15: Welcome Reception at the Marsala Lecture Hall (S. Rocco)

28 October

9.00 – 9.10		Welcome
9.10 – 9.50	G.R. Luckhurst	Thermotropic Biaxial Nematics: An Enduring Challenge?
9.50 – 10.30	S. Zumer	Superstructures in nematic colloids
10.30 – 11.00	C.A. deLange	Evolutionary strategies for solving extremely complicated NMR spectra of solutes in nematic solvents
11.00 – 11.30	A.F. Martins	Recent advances in the study of the dynamics of confined nematic liquid crystals with defects and boundary inhomogeneities
11.30 – 11.50		Coffee Break and Posters
11.50 – 12.30	M. Copic	Nematic fluctuations and semi-soft elasticity in liquid crystal elastomers
12.30 – 13.00	A. Ferrarini	An atomistic model for the elastic constants of nematics
lunch break
15.30 – 16.10	M. Wilson	Simulation studies of structure and organisation in chromonic phases and macromolecular liquid crystals.
16.10 – 16.40	M. Bates	Computer simulation of columnar phases in T and X shaped bolaamphiphiles
16.40 – 17.10	D. Cleaver	Computer simulation of ordered fluids and soft solids
17.10 – 17.40		Coffee break and posters
17.40 – 18.10	R. Berardi	Computer simulations of biaxial nematics
18.10 – 18.50	O.D. Lavrentovich	Dynamics of liquid crystal colloids studied by 3D microscopy

29 October

9.00 – 9.40	D. Photinos	Poly-domain to mono-domain phase transitions and field-induced macroscopic biaxial order in nematics
9.40 – 10.20	E.T. Samulski	The biaxial nematic phase in nonlinear oxadiazole mesogens
10.20 – 10.50	D. Bruce	From Simulation to Synthesis in the Search for the Biaxial Nematic Phase
10.50 – 11.20	G. Mehl	3-D ordering of mesogen covered gold nanoparticles.
11.20 – 11.40		Coffee Break and Posters
11.40 – 12.20	H. Yokoyama	Nanostructured surfaces for tailored anchoring of liquid crystals
12.20 – 12.50	M. Marinelli	Disorder effects at the HexB-SmA transition in 65OBC Liquid Crystal
lunch break
15.30 – 16.10	C. Tschierske	Complexity in liquid crystals
16.10 – 16.40	D. Guillon	Nanostructured dendritic architectures
16.40 – 17.10	A. Sugimura	Deuterium NMR study of the director dynamics for a low molar mass nematic
17.10 – 17.40		Coffee break and posters
17.40 – 18.20	H. Takezoe	Vibrational Circular Dichroism in Spontaneously Chiral Segregated Domains of Ester Molecules
18.20 – 18.50	E. Burnell	What can NMR divulge about the ordering potential in nematic and smectic A liquid crystals?
18.50 – 19.10	E4 com	Technical presentation

30 October

9.00 – 9.40	I.C. Khoo	Nanostructured Liquid Crystalline Optical Metamaterials
9.40 – 10.10	G. Abbate	Complex photonic structures in soft materials.
10.10 – 10.40	F. Nicoletta	Electro-optical properties of liquid crystal dispersions
10.40 – 11.10	C. Umeton	POLICRYPS Structures and Applications
11.10 – 11.40		Coffee Break and Posters
11.40 – 12.20	T. Bellini	Liquid crystallization and phase separation in concentrated solution of ultrashort DNA and RNA oligonucleotides
12.20 – 12.50	G. Assanto	Robust spatial optical solitons in nematic liquid crystals: light trapping, routing and steering
lunch break
14.30 – 19.30		Excursion

31 October

9.00 – 9.40	G. Vroege	Goethite nanorods and their modifications: extraordinary mineral liquid crystals
9.40 – 10.10	G. Celebre	About the nature and the role of long-range orientational interactions in nematic mesophases
10.10 – 10.40	L. Muccioli	Physical properties of n-cyanobiphenyls from Molecular Dynamics simulations
10.40 – 11.10	L.A. Madsen	Understanding and Controlling Anisotropy in Ionic Polymer Membranes and Micellar Solutions
11.10 – 11.40		Coffee Break and Posters
11.40 – 12.20	M. Osipov	Microscopic mechanisms of the tilt, biaxiality and ferroelectric ordering in smectic liquid crystals.
12.20 – 12.50	G. Moro	Director fluctuations in ordered phases and transverse magnetization relaxation
lunch break
15.30 – 16.10	Y. Geerts	Discotic liquid crystals : from synthesis to thin film patterning
16.10 – 16.50	F. Biscarini	Organic field effect transistors revisited: from charge tunneling devices to label-free transducers
16.50 – 17.20	T.J. Sluckin	Models of ferroelectric nematic colloidal behaviour
17.20 – 17.40		Coffee break and posters
17.40 – 18.10	G. Skacej	Controlling surface defect valence in colloids
18.10 – 18.30	C. Zannoni	Concluding remarks
20.30		Social Dinner

November 1 Departure

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