In skiing events like the downhill, slalom or ski jump it's often the skis that are bound to an athlete's feet--and the materials used to make them--that give these athletes an edge over the competition. U.S. Ski Team members Julia Mancuso, Ted Ligety and Scott Macartney, and Katharine Flores, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State University, explain how the materials used to make skis play a vital role in their performance on the...

Robert Ramsey gives a talk at the LC2CAM conference about meadowlark optics liquid crystal capabilities, next generation nematic LC technology, and "swift liquid crystal" devices.

Lu Lu gives a talk about the effects of composition on performance of electro-optical films (EOFs) using polymer encapsulated liquid crystals and CNTs.

Sin-Doo Lee gives a talk at the LC2CAM conference about the general features of dye-doped systems and binary LC grating, and the surface mediated optical memory and optical rewritability of LC gratings.

Electrospinning is a method of using high voltage electric fields to transform polymer solutions into nanofibre. The process involves applying high voltage (~10 kV) to a droplet of solution at the end of a capillary (which is visible on the left in the video). The surface charge on the droplet distorts the shape from that adopted by surface tension into what is known as the Taylor cone. From the tip of this cone a jet is ejected in response to the electric stresses on the fluid at that...

Drying of a 75μL droplet of 20% poly(ethylene oxide) solution in water, viewed from beneath using an inverted microscope (Nikon Eclipse TE2000-S) with 2x objective lens. The image measure 5mm across and the frame rate is increased by a factor of 300. The bright specks in the droplet are small clusters of polymer that would not dissolve, and help to visualise the flow within the droplet. Pinned drying (stage 1) occurs for the first 5 seconds, during which there is clear evidence for...

Drying of a 75μL droplet of 40% poly(ethylene oxide) solution in water. The duration of the experiment was approximately 2 hours, the distance across the image approximately 10mm. Timings given below are given relative to the video, to aid identification of the various stages and processes. The droplet shows a very short stage 1, around 1 second. The contact angle increases until 3 seconds and bootstrap deposition (stage 3) continues until 4 seconds. However, there is still liquid inside...

Drying of a 75μL droplet of 25% poly(ethylene oxide) solution in water. The duration of the experiment was approximately 2 hours, the distance across the image approximately 10mm. Timings given below are given relative to the video, to aid identification of the various stages and processes. The droplet exhibits stage 1 pinned drying for the first 5 seconds. However, the solid deposit is already much thicker for this droplet, than those with lower concentration. As the contact angle is...

Drying of a 75μL droplet of 8% poly(ethylene oxide) solution in water. The duration of the experiment was approximately 2 hours, the distance across the image approximately 10mm. Timings given below are given relative to the video, to aid identification of the various stages and processes. The droplet exhibits pinned drying (stage 1) for around the first 5 seconds, at which point the contact line depins and the droplet undergoes a dewetting transition (stage 2) until 9 seconds. At this...

Drying of a 75μL droplet of 5% poly(ethylene oxide) solution in water. The duration of the experiment was approximately 2 hours, the distance across the image approximately 10mm. Timings given below are given relative to the video, to aid identification of the various stages and processes. The droplet exhibits pinned drying (stage 1) for around the first 5 seconds, before depinning when the contact angle becomes lower than the measured receding contact angle. Stage 2 and bootstrap...