Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-05-29

Energy landscapes of soft matter: From super-cooled liquids to liquid crystals

Objective

This proposal aims at understanding thermodynamics and dynamics of soft condensed matter in terms of the underlying potential energy landscape (PEL). We are particularly interested in supercooled liquids and thermotropic liquid crystals, the latter being known to display rich phase behaviour.

Recent studies have revealed marked similarities in the dynamics between supercooled liquids and thermotropic liquid crystals, despite their diverse physical nature. Discovering a general relation between the onset of slow dynamics and the temperature-dependent exploration of the underlying PEL would be of great interest.

We aim to characterize a unifying landscape mechanism for slow dynamics in soft matter. To understand the fundamental basis for the observed similarities, we propose to characterize the PEL of a variety of model systems in terms of local minima and the transition states that connect them. Thermodynamic and dynamic properties will then be computed through simulations using methods developed in the host group.

The project will therefore combine the expertise of the applicant in soft matter with that in the energy landscape formalism of the host. A key feature of the proposal will be the treatment of orientational degrees of freedom and their interplay with translational coordinates.

The interdisciplinary nature of the proposal, with applications to diverse physical systems, would appeal to a wide scientific community. Soft condensed matter is ubiquitous in nature and finds a wide range of application s, from household use to the development of cutting-edge technologies.

Further development of fundamental knowledge of the dynamics of these systems would certainly be helpful for engineering these applications (for example, the use of liquid crystals in displays). Moreover, our approach will yield results on the phase transition characteristics of materials that are of prime technological importance in the design of novel materials.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP6-2005-MOBILITY-7
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

IIF - Marie Curie actions-Incoming International Fellowships

Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
EU contribution
No data
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0