Today, we have the pleasure to welcome Pr Hiroshi Fukumura (KU Leuven, Belgium, & Tohoku University, Japan) who will give a talk at 11am in the Salle de Conférence of ISIS, entitled

“Liquid-liquid phase separation dynamics: hierarchy from molecular level to continuous bulk”

Here below you can find the abstract of his talk :

Pulsed laser induced liquid-liquid phase separation has been studied with various time-resolved techniques. Time-resolved Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy revealed molecular level changes immediately after the laser pulses up to 1 . Ultrafast imaging under conventional microscopes showed macroscopic changes started 10 after the laser pulse. The macroscopic phase separation seemed to follow spinodal decomposition described by Kahn-Hilliard theory. It is, however, yet unclear what occurs in the time range between 1 and 10 . Recently we have succeeded in observing this time range with time-resolved structured illumination as well as optical diffraction techniques. Possible explanation of our results would be that mesoscopic entities like micelle-like structures mediate between molecular level changes and macroscopic spinodal decomposition. Related topics like liquid-liquid phase separation in living cells, critical Casimir force in binary liquids, laser ablation and implantation of polymer surfaces may be introduced.