Faculty Open House with the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Once every semester, the Department of Physics hosts its Faculty Open House, fondly known as "Making Friends Across Campus." This engaging event fosters connections between Physics and a synergistic department through a wine & cheese social and a series of brief, insightful presentations.
This semester, we’re excited to welcome faculty from the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science! Join us on Wednesday, November 12 to explore collaborative opportunities and innovative research ideas.
Event Details:
- Wine & Cheese Social:
2:00–2:30 PM | Compton 245 - Faculty Presentations & Discussion:
2:30–3:30 PM | Crow 204
Presentations by visiting faculty will highlight their research or other topics that can strengthen connections and develop collaborations. The lengths of the talks are typically 10 minutes and can be adjusted depending on the number of participating faculty. Following the talks, stay for an informal discussion session to exchange ideas and strengthen interdepartmental connections. Due to WashU policy, the wine & cheese part of the event is closed to undergraduate students.
Don't miss this chance to connect, collaborate, and innovate!
Presentation details:
Mark Meacham, Associate Professor of MEMS
Acoustic microfluidics for manipulation and measurement of biomolecules, cells, tissues, and microorganisms
Acoustic microfluidic devices offer exquisite control for non-contact manipulation of objects sized from tens of nanometers to tens of microns. Ultrasound exposure is considered gentle, having a negligible effect on biomolecule and biological cell structure and function. Owing to these advantages, acoustofluidics can be an enabling technology for numerous applications in medicine and biology. Our lab leverages unique acoustofluidic capabilities to develop microreactors for biomolecule synthesis, systems for single cell trapping and analysis, as well as studies involving larger cell numbers as aggregates or swarms of microswimmers. In addition to discussing various acoustofluidic technologies, I will touch on other work to create micro-bioelectrochemical cells for investigating electroactive bacteria and packed bed reactors for studying carbonation and sulfidization of silicate minerals under reactive fluid flow.
Francisco Lagunas Vargas, Assistant Professor of MEMS
Probing Matter at the Atomic Scale: Imaging, Dynamics, and Disorder in Functional Materials
In this talk, I will discuss how aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) enables us to visualize and quantify atomic-scale structure, chemistry, and dynamics in materials that power energy conversion, sensing, and electronic technologies.
Chris Cooper, Assistant Professor of MEMS
Dynamic polymers for energy, sustainability and human health
My group focuses on programming dynamic interactions to achieve top-performing soft actuators, underwater adhesives, multilayered wearable electronics,sustainable plastics. We aim to develop an overarching framework to predict properties from the molecular structure of dynamic polymers and use this framework to design next-generation polymers with previously unachievable properties.
Sang-Hoon Bae, Assistant Professor of MEMS
Artificial Heterostructures of 2D and 3D Nanomembranes for Emergent Physical Coupling and 3D Integration
Heterostructures provide a versatile platform for exploring emergent physical phenomena and developing advanced electronic applications. By confining materials to thicknesses ranging from several micrometers down to a few nanometers, their electronic, optical, and mechanical properties can be drastically modified compared to their bulk counterparts. Traditionally, covalently bonded heterostructures have dominated the field due to their compatibility with well-established fabrication processes. However, the growing demand for materials with novel functionalities such as tunable band structures, enhanced confinement, and emergent interfacial phenomena, has fueled intense interest in alternative systems. Among the promising are freestanding nanomembranes, encompassing atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials and ultrathin three-dimensional (3D) crystalline nanomembranes. These systems are not only mechanically flexible and intrinsically low-stress but also offer substrate decoupling, enabling intrinsic physical and ferroic responses to emerge free from clamping effects. When vertically stacked, such nanomembranes form artificial heterostructures with precisely engineered interfaces, where broken symmetries, strain gradients, and polarization discontinuities give rise to entirely new behaviors not observed in naturally occurring systems.
Our team is at the forefront of this field, developing high-quality freestanding 2D and 3D nanomembranes through novel synthesis and layer release techniques. These advances enable artificial heterostructures and monolithic 3D integration, opening new directions in both fundamental science, such as interfacial charge transfer, symmetry-driven phase transitions, and topological effects, and applied technologies, including photonic chips, AI hardware, and energy storage. In this talk, I will discuss the physical principles underlying nanomembrane fabrication and integration, and highlight the exciting opportunities they offer for probing and exploiting physical coupling at the nanoscale by showcasing interesting application from advanced photonics chips, electrostatic energy storage, and 3D AI chips.
Guy Genin, Professor of MEMS
TBD