MEAM Seminar: “Multiplying the Coolness of Gels: Messy Networks, Double Networks, and More”
November 18 at 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Many materials we eat, spread, squeeze, or 3D print are gels, soft amorphous solids whose solid component comprises self-assembled networks of particles, fibers, or agglomerates of proteins, polymers, and colloids. The space between and within human cells is permeated by self-assembled gel networks, the extra-cellular matrix and the cytoskeleton, whose self- organization and heterogeneity is central to biological functions. Self-assembled gels have adaptive, tunable, and nonlinear rheology determined by a complex interplay between the molecular cohesion and surface interactions, the aggregation kinetics that drive formation of various types of structures, and the effect of external forces that can promote breaking or reforming of the load-bearing backbone. Solidification processes are typically sources of frozen-in stresses and help build a memory of the processing history in these amorphous solids. Disorder and self-organization determine stress localization under load and the feedback between stress heterogeneities, structural disorder, and nonequilibrium conditions is therefore key to the mechanical response of these fascinating and ubiquitous materials.
Emanuela Del Gado
Professor of Physics, and Director of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology, Georgetown University
Emanuela Del Gado is a physics Professor and the Director of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology at Georgetown University. She was a Marie Curie Fellow and the Swiss National Science Foundation Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, and has held visiting positions at MIT, ESPCI Paris, ENS Lyon, and University Paris Saclay. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018, she is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2020) and a Fellow of the Society of Rheology (2023). Her research is aimed at the spatiotemporal characterization of microscopic dynamical processes and the unraveling of microstructural underpinnings in the rheology of soft materials, with a focus on colloidal gels, cement and clay gels, and other soft solids.