Seminar Speaker: Julia Dshemuchadse, Cornell University

Understanding the Self-Assembly of Complex Crystal Structures Through Minimalistic Simulations

Abstract

Crystalline order is ubiquitous across the length scales of different materials, from the atomic to the mesoscopic; and while the phenomena associated with condensed matter, such as the formation or disruption of crystallinity or the variety of crystal structures, often mirror each other, our understanding and discussion thereof is traditionally sequestered by materials classes or by the analysis methods and chemistries involved. We believe that the observed structural similarities between soft and hard condensed matter are a sign of underlying interrelations between the mechanisms that lead to the creation of said crystals. Therefore, we use soft-matter computational methods to model processes typically studied in hard-matter systems, and we apply the crystallographic language of atomistic matter to structural phenomena in soft condensed materials. By employing simple coarse-grained models to investigate the emergence of long-range order from short-range interactions, we gain systematic insights into the phenomena that lead to the crystallization of complex types of order. Our goal is to build on the resulting predictive knowledge of the system parameters that govern the formation of ordered or disordered, complex or simple, isotropic or highly anisotropic structures, and to ultimately be able to understand previously mysterious systems, as well as manipulate the physical processes underlying the design of new materials.

Biography

Dr. Julia Dshemuchadse received her Diploma degree in Physics from TU Dresden, Germany, and her Ph.D. in Materials Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where she conducted crystallographic studies of complex intermetallic compounds. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Dshemuchadse joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor on a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation and performed computational research of soft matter self-assembly behavior. 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 reveal the fundamental principles of crystal structure formation and stability, by combining methods and approaches from hard and soft condensed matter research. Dr. Dshemuchadse co-authored a book entitled “Intermetallics – Structures, Properties, and Statistics”, published in 2016 by Oxford University Press. She was awarded an NSF CAREER Award in 2021, as well as a Machine Learning in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Award by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and a Doctoral New Investigator Grant by the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund in 2022.