In-person MSE Colloquium: Julia Dshemuchadse, Crystal structures in self-assembly simulations – a soft-matter approach for hard-matter problems

Dr. Julia Dshemuchadse
Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University

Abstract

The discovery of progressively complex crystal structures in mesoscopic systems has led to an increasing demand for crystallographic methods in soft condensed matter research. In return, the prevalence and variety of structurally exciting phenomena in coarse-grained models enables us to study the diverse and intricate types of order and their emergence within simple computational frameworks. We investigate the phenomena of crystal growth and robustness in a variety of systems, mimicking diverse crystal structures, as well as system and environmental factors such as dispersity, particle size, chemical bonding, system confinement, etc. Our goal is to gain systematic insights into crystallization and structural stability across length scales, with the ultimate objective to deduce principles that will enable the tailored and targeted design of novel, functional materials.

Bio

Dr. Dshemuchadse received her Diploma degree in Physics from TU Dresden, Germany, and her PhD in Materials Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Between her doctoral and postdoctoral work, she investigated hard condensed matter with experimental methods (X-ray diffraction studies of complex intermetallic compounds), as well as soft condensed matter via computation (molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations of mesoscale self-assembly). After working at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor on a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Dr. Dshemuchadse joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor in 2019. Her group studies abstract model systems to discover fundamental principles of crystal structure formation and stability. Dr. Dshemuchadse earned the Max-von-Laue award from the German Crystallographic Society in 2015 and co-authored a book entitled “Intermetallics – Structures, Properties, and Statistics”, published in 2016 by Oxford University Press. Most recently, she was awarded an NSF CAREER award in 2021. Review research conducted by Dr. Dshemuchadse and her group, Cape Crystal, on capecrystal.mse.cornell.edu.

Julia will be presenting in person in Fontana 2040. 

Virtual option:

Zoom