Physicist awarded £1.25m micro-machines grant
MORE than £1.25m has been awarded to a Loughborough University theoretical physicist to design a class of self-assembling micro-machines that can move spontaneously.
Dr Tyler Shendruk, of the mathematical sciences department in the School of Science, has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for a five-year study that aims to replicate some of the fascinating behaviours displayed by biological molecules and microorganisms and design a new class of man-made materials.
Dr Shendruk uses computational simulations to research biological matter and has studied various types of ‘squishy physics’ (materials that are soft, easy to deform and flow in unusual ways), such as colloids, swimming bacteria and DNA.
He will use the ERC grant to design micro-machines, using computer simulations to see how to create ‘Living’ Colloidal Liquid Crystals – a new class of soft materials that can form, restructure and move themselves.
Colloids are tiny particles suspended in a fluid medium (a gas or a liquid) that cannot be separated out by ordinary filtration methods.
Scientists are exploring ways to get colloids to come together on their own to form complex structures – a process known as ‘self-assembling’.
Dr Shendruk’s research hopes to use a new type of liquid crystal to produce more complex and continually dynamic colloidal structures that could act as the components for micro-robots.
It will examine what happens when passive colloids are put in ‘living’ liquid crystals.
It is hoped the activity of the surrounding fluid may allow for shortcuts in colloidal self-assembly and result in the formation of new dynamic ‘living’ colloidal structures that would not be possible in traditional, static liquid crystals.
Dr Shendruk will use computational models to simulate ‘living’ colloidal liquid crystals on Loughborough’s HPC (High Performance Computers), exploring their uncanny motions and dynamic structures.
However, because ‘living’ colloidal liquid crystals are a mixture of many moving colloids in a complex, self-flowing biological fluid, he and his team will need to develop novel numerical algorithms capable of simulating these unusual materials.
Dr Shendruk says colloidal structures that build and power themselves have the potential to act as hybrid bio/micromachines that continually move and change because of the spontaneous flows.
He says if the project is successful, the micro-machines could be used for a variety of applications.
Dr Shendruk said: “Just like robots aren’t just for one single task but can do many things, I hope our ‘living’ colloidal liquid crystals might form micro-bots that could do all sorts tiny tasks.”
He added: “I feel very lucky that the ERC recognized how exciting these ideas and funded a team of researchers to boldly explore these exciting ideas.”
Dr Shendruk will be awarded £1,251,284.40 over five years.
He is a Canadian, hired last year to work in the UK as part of Loughborough University’s mathematical sciences department and the newly founded Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical Modelling (ICMM).