Arash Nikoubashman is Heisenberg Professor and head of the Theory of Biologically Inspired Polymers department at the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research (IPF) Dresden. With a background in theoretical soft matter physics, his research focuses on understanding structure formation and emergent behavior of colloidal and polymeric systems in and out of equilibrium. In order to design and study the physical properties of these complex systems, his group develops and performs a wide range of computational techniques, such as Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations.
After receiving a BSc in Physics and Computer Science and an MSc in Physics from the University of Düsseldorf, he completed a PhD at TU Dresden in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Kahl and Prof. Likos. This was followed by a postdoctoral stay in the group of Prof. Panagiotopoulos at Princeton University (2012–2015), where he explored the directed self-assembly of (amphiphilic) polymers using external stimuli such as shear or solvent exchange. In 2015, he returned to Germany to lead an independent Emmy Noether group at the University of Mainz, before joining the IPF Dresden in his current role.
In this talk, he will present recent work on the structure formation in evaporating colloidal droplets, with a particular focus on how the shape and interactions of the suspended particles as well as the processing conditions affect the morphology and packing of the resulting supraparticles. These drying-mediated assembly processes offer a robust route to fabricate hierarchically structured materials with controlled porosity, which are particularly promising for their catalytic, photonic, and physical absorption properties. By combining simulations and theory, his work sheds light on key parameters controlling drying-induced structure formation, providing design rules for bottom-up fabrication strategies in colloidal materials science.
Probing materials in the Fast Lane:
Innovative Physical Chemistry for colloidal photonics
We characterize light-matter interactions with a highly accurate stopwatch – by light itself! Following the generation, fate and recombination of excited states in (molecular) materials is one of the key features in driving and explaining photophysical and photochemical processes, ranging from the ultrafast photoisomerization responsible for our visual process to the accurate description of exciton-phonon interactions in ultrathin inorganic nanomaterial systems beyond graphene.
In my talk I will touch on recent examples in which we combine our unique wet-chemistry – spectroscopy feedback loop to unravel photoexcitation-induced dynamics in highly diverse and interdisciplinary systems. These range from molecular over plasmonic to semiconducting nanomaterials and particle systems, which lead to applications in innovative photonics.