Liquid Crystal Institute    

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Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Professor, Chemical Physics

Associate Director, Liquid Crystal Institute

phone: 330-672-2604

FAX:  330-672-2796

 mpalffy@cpip.kent.edu

Research Interests:

Currently, I am interested in the following topics:

•  liquid crystal elastomers 
•  negative index materials
•  mirrorless lasing in liquid crystals
•  failure and breakdown

Group Members:

Michele Moreira-Fontana Research Associate

Paul Luchette Post-Doctoral Fellow

Sabrina Relaix Post-Doctoral Fellow

Christopher Grabowski Post-Doctoral Fellow

Gyanu Acharya Post-Doctoral Fellow

Jeremy Neal Graduate Student

Jake Fontana Graduate Student

Yue Cui Graduate Student

Nick Glazar Graduate Student

Collaborators:

•  Xiaoyu Zheng                 Department of Mathematical Sciences, KSU
•  Michael Shelley              Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU
•  Bahman Taheri                AlphaMicron, Inc.

Outreach:

Current outreach efforts include interactions with undergraduates as well high school students.

mentioned in Howstuffworks

Some Representative Publications:

	Liquid crystals: Printed actuators in a flap	Nature Materials (News and Views) 8, 614 - 615 (2009)
	The diverse world of liquid crystals	Physics Today 60 (9), 54 (2007)
	Distance of closest approach of two arbitrary hard ellipses in two dimensions	Phys. Rev. E, 75, 061709 (2007)
	Fast liquid-crystal elastomer swims into the dark	Nature Materials 3, 307 (2004)
	A dunking bird of the second kind	Am. J. Phys. 72, 782 (2004)
	Lasing in a three-dimensional photonic crystal of the liquid crystal blue phase II	Nature Materials 1, 111 (2002)
	Tunable Mirrorless Lasing in Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Elastomers	Adv. Mater. 13, 1069 (2001)

Science News:

	How water splashes atop your shoes
	http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16851-video-wet-shoe-problem-solved.html	New Scientist, March 26 (2009)
	http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2009/03/_wet_and_wild_physics.html	Nature, March 17 (2009)
	http://www.wetenschap24.nl/video/bekijk/wmv/1/nu!-trucje-tegen-natte-schoenen.htm	Dutch TV, March 26 (2009)
	http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090324-wet-shoes.html	Livescience, March 24 (2009)

	Bubbles and beer bottles: an explosive combination
	http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics/2009-03/msg00901.html	Inside science news service, arch 18 (2009)
	http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2009/04/index.html	Cocktail party physics, March 24 (2009)

Teaching:

	Fall 2007:  Liquid Crystal Materials (CPHY-72250)
	Spring 2008: LC Optics and Photonics (CPHY-74495)
	Remote Lecture

Useful Links:

Electronic Liquid Crystal Communications e-LC  International Liquid Crystal Society  AlphaMicron, Inc.