Rotello developed a very rapid and convenient method for fabricating microspheres with walls made of nanoparticles, known as colloidosomes. In this method alkyne and azide functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles are co-assembled at the water-in oil-interface and covalently linked using “click” chemistry under ambient conditions to create magnetic colloidosomes. These colloidosomes are highly stable in water, have size selective permeability, and are responsive towards external

One of the key hurdles to building a large quantum computer is maintaining the coherence of the many individual two-level quantum mechanical systems, or qubits. Atoms and ions in a vacuum or nuclear spins in solids and liquids can have long coherence, but it is not yet known how well those systems can be scaled to make a large computer. Ideally one could use the spin of an electron in a semiconductor as a qubit, since modern semiconductor technology is based upon moving and controlling electrons in silicon.

The JHU MRSEC conducts extensive K-12 educational outreach programs aimed at promoting interest in and awareness of the importance of modern materials research.

We have developed two strategies forÂ’  preparing tethered lipid bilayer membrane patches on solid surfaces by DNA hybridization.Â’  In the first strategy, single-stranded DNA strands are immobilized by click chemistry to a silica surface, whose remaining surface is passivated to prevent direct assembly of a solid supported bilayer.Â’  Then giant unilamellar vesicles (G

This project leverages ongoing research on the dynamics of DNA and vescicles within CPIMA.Â’  We have developed a novel microfluidic four-roll mill that allows all flow types (from extension to shear to rotation) to be accessed and have previously used it to examine DNA tumbling in mixed flows and, most recently, to study vesicle dynamics.

The magnetic anisotropy energy is among the most important functional properties of magnetic elements. It determines the orientation and stability of the magnetization as well as the mechanisms and the dynamics of the magnetization reversal.

A Hele-Shaw system was used by University of Chicago MRSEC researchers, Sidney Nagel and Heinrich Jaeger and their research groups, to explore the zero-surface-tension properties of granular "fluids."Â’  Theoretically, it was determined by Paul Wiegmann, also at the University of Chicago, that fluid fingering in the zero-surface-tension limit should lead to singular cusp structure locally and fractal geometry globally.Â’  Granular flow provides the first experime