NEWS: There are several positions available in our group, at Postdoc and PhD levels, to work on non equilibrium processes in nanomaterials. If you are interested please contact me  for informal enquiries.

Our research is concerned with the investigation of soft interfaces. Soft interfaces appear in many problems of interest in chemistry, physics and biology: colloids, biopolymers, membranes, nanomaterials, … These are the building blocks of many devices used in current nanotechnology applications. Soft interfaces are characterized by 1) the complexity of their constituents, often involving macromolecular entities, and 2) the ability of these constituents to self-organize into complex structures. One essential element of soft matter is the strength of the interactions between different components, which are of the order of the thermal energy. Consequently thermal fluctuations play a very important role in determining the self-assembly process into structures that often exhibit striking properties not found in other condensed phases (e.g., liquids and solids). Many soft materials involve interfaces that determine to a great extent the physical and chemical behaviour of the overall system.

In our group we develop and apply computational methods and theoretical approaches to understand and interpret the behaviour of soft interfaces. Our current research focuses on three main topics: 1) interactions between nanoparticles and biomolecules at liquid-liquid and liquid-vapour interfaces, and how these interactions can be exploited to design interfacial molecular devices that can respond to external perturbations (e.g. external fields). 2) Structure and phase behaviour of soft materials (polyelectrolytes and membranes), with particular emphasis on the role of the solvent in determining their properties and 3) Non equilibrium phenomena at nanoscale interfaces, in particular, the investigation of energy transfer processes across interfaces of relevance in high performance materials (e.g. nanofluids).