The 2023 AMLCI Materials Day at Kent State University will take place April 28 – 29, 2023. The theme for this year’s symposium is “Chirality & Optical Activity” with relevant presentations from leaders in the field in the areas of soft matter and nanoscience. The theme of the 2023 AMLCI Materials Day “Chirality & Optical Activity” recognizes the pivotal role chirality plays in nature and in materials science. Chirality—the absence of mirror symmetry—is a fundamental concept involved in the creation, assembly, and specificity of biological, chemical, mechanical and optical properties of materials and is intricately woven into the fabric of the origin of life itself. The keynote, presented by Prof. Noel A. Clark from the University of Colorado at Boulder, “Liquid Crystals, Chirality, and the Origin of Life: Features of an Ancient Liquid Crystal World”, will be a testament to this notion. Introducing chirality to liquid crystals in particular has led to a wealth of new phases, phenomena, and devices, and MD2023 will attempt to capture the tremendous role chirality has played and will continue to play in the future.
This year, Materials Day 2023 is co-hosted by the AMLCI and the Design Innovation (DI) Initiative at
KSU, and we will again convene in the lower level of the Integrated Sciences Building on the KSU
main campus. Topics will range from chirality’s key role for the origin of life and chiral nanomaterials to
devices that take advantage of chiral solutes inducing chiral liquid crystal phases. In addition, MD2023
is the venue where we will introduce the AMLCI−DI “Materials & Devices Start-Up Challenge”; a competition
for multidisciplinary entrepreneurial teams to generate ideas, develop prototypes, and create a business
model toward the generation of a minimum viable product (MVP).
This is scheduled as an in-person event with only a few of our speakers presenting remotely. Registration is requested. Click HERE to register for the event.
Visit the Materials Day website for more information, including the complete program of events, speaker information, poster session information, and location details.