Alumna
Evelina B. Kim

Education

• B.Sc., Chemical Engineering, Ohio State University, 1997
• B. Music Performance (Piano), Ohio State University, 1997
• Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005

Research

Liquid crystalline (LC) phase is characterized by the long range orientational order among fluid particles; their translational mobility, however, remains relatively unrestrained. LC phase can be observed in the systems of molecules possessing geometric anisotropy, i.e., rod-like or disc-like. It is the anisotropy of dispersion forces that causes the system to transition at certain conditions into LC phase. Various LC phases have been observed and simulated; we are interested in two particular kinds, nematic and smectic. In the former, the centers of mass of molecules are disordered while the molecular axes align along a common direction; in the latter, in addition to a common direction, centers of mass arrange themselves into layers.

The ordering in the fluid can be induced by confinement, anisotropy in surface topography, electric or magnetic fields, etc. At the same time, existing order in the fluid can be destroyed by introduction of defects such as defects in the surface or large molecules. These effects have been observed experimentally and are presumably the result of the interactions on the molecular level. From the above, two ideas follow. First, we can apply the induction/destruction effects in a LC sensor where we utilize a nematic-isotropic transition as a visual test for protein adsorption on a nano-patterned surface. Second, the molecular nature of the interactions suggests the use of molecular simulations. With the simulations we hope to determine the optimal size of the defects that would break the ordering in the bulk fluid and the effects of confinement and surface topography on the induced ordering.

Publication

• Orlando Guzmán, Evelina B. Kim, Sylvain Grollau, Nicholas L. Abbott, and Juan J. de Pablo.
  "Defect Structure around Two Colloids in a Liquid Crystal".
  Physical Review Letters, 91(23):235507, 2003 December 5. [DOI] [APS/PRL]
• Evelina B. Kim, Roland Faller, Qiliang Yan, Nicholas L. Abbott, and Juan J. de Pablo.
  "Potential of mean force between a spherical particle suspended in a nematic liquid crystal and a substrate".
  Journal of Chemical Physics 117(16) 7781--7787, 2002 October 22. [DOI] [AIP/JCP]

Contact

Dr. Evelina B. Kim
Abbott Laboratories
Chicago, IL
U.S.A.