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Intelligent Design of Autonomous Materials

The Group on Intelligent Design of Autonomous Materials welcomes competitive and enthusiastic applicants to conduct cutting-edge research at HKUST in Hong Kong. Interested persons with theoretical or computational background in Applied Mathematics, Physics, Biophysics, Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, or Chemical Engineering are encouraged to send enquiries to Rui's email address at

ruizhang@ust.hk

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Our Research

Our society is currently facing unprecedented challenges in health, energy, and the environment, which have created a strong demand in new materials which are renewable, multifunctional, light-weight, and can interact with human more safely and intelligently. Soft materials are a promising candidate for this purpose. The overarching goal of the our Group is to harness soft materials, such as active matter, liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, metamaterials, and their composites to design next-generation, autonomous materials and soft machines.

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Specifically, our group will employ traditional and emerging computational methods, including machine learning, to propose novel soft materials with nontraditional functionalities, features, and dynamics. Examples include active fluids with tailorable flow patterns, multiphase systems sensitive to specific stimuli, and origami materials with novel shape-changing behaviors in response to external fields. These new soft materials are promising for soft robotics, wearable devices, space exploration, 4D printing, energy harvesting, smart buildings, sensing and diagnosis, and etc.

 

Our group strives to borrow the wisdom from biological systems and design synthetic materials and machines that are low-cost, green, biocompatible, and intelligent. Our research is multidisciplinary, covering Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Materials Science, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering.

Light-Driven Dancing of Nematic Colloids in Fractional Skyrmions and Bimerons

Zhawure Asilehan*, Wentao Tang*, Jing Zhang, Zijun Chen, Ruijie Wang, Qingtian Shi, Ganlin Song, Jinghua Jiang#, Rui Zhang# and Chenhui Peng#

Nat. Commun.  – in press

Materials with full and fractional skyrmions are important for fundamental studies and can be applied as information carriers for applications in spintronics or skyrmionics. However, creation, direct optical observation and manipulation of different skyrmion textures remain challenging. Besides, how the transformation of skyrmion textures directs the dynamics of colloids is not well understood. Here, we use experiments, simulations and theory to demonstrate that fractional skyrmion and bimeron strings can be created in a nematic liquid crystal (LC) through incompatible interfaced topological patterns. Moreover, distinct topological profiles are realized in the same skyrmion string loop. The light-actuated transformations of fractional skyrmion textures in both straight and loop geometry drive colloidal assemblies to exhibit exotic dynamic behaviors. Finally, fractional skyrmions with arbitrary shapes can be used as templates for a variety of exquisite colloidal assemblies. This work provides opportunities for designing new smart material to control self-assembly and transport of colloids.

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