DMSE Special Seminar with Professor Stefano Martiniani of New York University
Building 6, 182 MEMORIAL DR (REAR), Cambridge, MA
In this talk, Stefano Martiniani of New York University will discuss the importance of understanding the relationship between structure and properties to designing materials with novel functions. Crystals have proven to be a highly versatile platform for engineering functions, as the periodicity of their atomic arrangement greatly facilitates the prediction and optimization of their properties. However, not all properties can be realized with periodic structures. Martiniani will show how he and his research team established a new state of the art in the design of correlated disordered structures. This approach led to the discovery of a new class of disordered functional materials termed “gyromorphs,” which uniquely combine liquidlike translational disorder with quasi-long-range rotational order, induced by a ring of delta peaks in their structure factor. His research predicts that gyromorphs outperform all existing isotropic photonic bandgap materials, paving the way for fine control over optical properties.