QAMSS Lecture: From Molecular Order to Mechanical Function: Liquid Crystal Elastomers and Sustainable Adaptive Materials

Soft materials are often thought of as weak, passive or merely compliant. This lecture will present a different view: that molecular order, elasticity and internal motion can be combined to create materials with adaptive mechanical function. Using liquid crystal elastomers as the central example, I will trace how ideas from liquid crystals, rubber elasticity and soft-matter physics have led to materials that actuate, dissipate energy, change shape, adhere reversibly and can be reprocessed or recycled. The talk will connect the historical development of the field with current challenges in sustainable and responsive materials, and will be aimed at a broad audience across physics, materials science and engineering.

Attend this talk to hear:

• How a field that began with the physics of liquid crystals and rubber elasticity has grown into a platform for adaptive soft materials
• Why liquid crystal elastomers offer unusual combinations of molecular order, mechanical response, actuation and damping
• How fundamental soft-matter physics can guide new approaches to sustainability, recyclable polymers, soft robotics and mechanically functional materials

About the speaker

Prof. Eugene Terentjev, University of Cambridge

Eugene Terentjev is the Professor of Polymer Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Queens’ College. Educated in Moscow, where he trained in physics and crystallography, he moved to Cambridge after earlier research posts in Moscow and the USA. His work spans soft condensed matter, polymer physics, liquid crystals, colloids and biological physics. With Mark Warner and others, he helped establish the modern physics of liquid crystal elastomers, a field connecting molecular order, elasticity and mechanical function.