Sharon Glotzer
University of Michigan, MI·Materials Science
Water freezes into ice, proteins line up into crystals, and nanoparticles assemble into ordered arrays that steer light. Each of these is a phase transition, in which particles rearrange from disorder into order.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Computer Science
- Topics
self-assembly
phase transitions
crystallization
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Develop MPATHS, system-agnostic software that identifies local structural motifs from particle positions and orientations and tracks them along phase transition pathways.
- Implement routines for neighbor finding, per-particle order parameters and their cross-correlations, and information-theory detection of local and global structural events.
- Enable high-throughput, cross-system comparisons of self-assembly pathways in colloidal crystals, active matter, and atomic and molecular systems, using data from simulations or experiments.
More about the research
The final structure depends on the exact pathway the particles take along the way. Yet automated, general-purpose tools for tracking these microscopic rearrangements barely exist. Without them, it is hard to link processing conditions and particle design to the final material.
Why it matters
Knowing how particles find their way into a crystal could help manufacturers favor a desired crystal form, called a polymorph, over unwanted ones. It could also improve crystal quality and raise yields in making pharmaceuticals, metals, ceramics, plastics, and nanocomposites. In the long run, this could support materials that build themselves, such as coatings, light-sensitive paints, and energy-storage materials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Michael Bevan
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Engineering
Measure and model how spherical and ellipsoidal colloidal particles interact on spherical, cylindrical and wavy surfaces as a function of particle aspect ratio, surface coverage and substrate curvature, using optical microscopy paired with simulation.
Qian Chen
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Materials Science
Identify the surface forces that cause ligand molecules to form patches in specific regions of nanoparticles. The goal is to learn how to break particle symmetry and create directional interactions, combining theory, simulation and experiments.
Charles Sing
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Engineering
Use hybrid polymer field theory informed by particle simulations to test how steric repulsion and hydrophobic interactions control coacervation between polycations and surfactant micelles.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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