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Date: 3 - 10 July, 2011 - Erice ITALY

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18^th Course

Liquid crystal nanostructures and self-assembling:
from organic electronics to metamaterials

2nd School of the Italian Liquid Crystal Society

Directors of the School: A. d'Alessandro, P. Pasini, C. Zannoni

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Purpose of the School

The SICL Schools are aimed to Ph.D. students and young Post-Docs in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Engineering who are interested in widening their knowledge in the fields of Liquid Crystals and related fields with particular focusing in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The objective of the second SICL School is to provide a state-of-the-art review of the rapidly evolving experimental and theoretical techniques employed in the study of these fields. After an introduction on LC physics and chemistry, the contents of this second SICL School will cover the state-of-the-art of the rapidly evolving experimental, theoretical and computational techniques, which interface novel liquid crystal and nanocomposite molecular organization to the emerging fields of organic electronics and metamaterials through self-assembly. The School will consist of 6 working days with 15-17 lecturers. The number of participants will be limited to about 50 to allow a wide opportunity to take part fully in the proceedings and discussions of the Course. Updated information can be found at www-th.bo.infn.it/islc.

TOPICS

Tentatively the following topics will be covered:

• Introduction to LC optics and photonics
• Introduction to LC defects
• Introduction to synthesis of LC and novel biaxial compounds
• Negative index dielectrics using LC
• Traditional and novel NMR techniques for LC systems
• NMR studies of solutes in LC
• Description of molecular organizations in LC
• Modelling techniques for LC
• Optical metamaterials: from basic physics to applications
• Nanostructured LC assemblies of nanoparticles
• Liquid crystal semiconductors and applications
• Discotic liquid crystals and organic electronics
• Self assembling and molecular packing properties
• Chirality and self-assembled nanostructures
• X-ray techniques for LC investigations
• Chemistry of Self-Organized Nanocomposites for negative refractive index materials
• Chiral nematic colloids
• Ferroelectric nanoparticles

INVITED SPEAKERS

A list of confirmed invited speakers includes:

Philippe Barois, CNRS, Université de Bordeaux 1, France
Valentina Domenici, University of Pisa, Italy
Bertrand Donnio, Université de Strasbourg, Francea
James Emsley, University of Southampton, UK
Dean Evans, Air Force Research Laboratories, USA
Daniele Finotello, National Science Foundation, USA
Attilio Golemme, University of Calabria, Italy
Randy Kamien, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Iam-Choon Khoo, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Georg Mehl, University of Hull, UK
Mary O’Neill, University of Hull, UK
Giuseppe Strangi, University of Calabria, Italy
Epifanio Virga, University of Pavia, Italy
Claudio Zannoni, University of Bologna, Italy
Slobodan Zumer, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

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