Short introduction to the Lab
The Soft and Complex Matter Lab is currently located at NTNU's Department of Physics and Faculty of Natural Sciences.
Soft matter is typically composed of nano-/meso-structures, which are easily deformable when exposed to weak external fields, such as flow fields (microfluidics), mechanical forces,
electric or magnetic fields, or by thermal agitations.
We study soft matter in the context of complex matter that results from self-assembly of various nano- or micro-sized building blocks.
In our group we study, mainly experimentally, a variety of natural and sustainable complex and composite matter, ranging from clays to cellulose and plant-based materials,
including more generally systems from the whole soft and complex matter realm (colloids, surfactants, polymers). The research group is very active in investigating both fundamental,
such as self-assembly of nano- or micro-sized building blocks or gas and fluid flow through nano-porous media, and the potential of meso- or nano-structured nature-based materials for applications,
currently focusing on CO2 capture and gas separation, polymer composites, nanolayered composites with groundbreaking potential for sustainable electronics applications,
structural colors arising from clay nanolayers embedded in fluid or solid matrices, and research on composite fluids/solids for food applications.
A main experimental model system studied in the lab is clay, which are nano-layered silicate patchy particles, that can form soft and complex structures through spontaneous self-assembly of its particles.
Other materials that we use as model systems for soft and complex matter are various types of colloidal particles, cellulose, zeolites, surfactants, polymers.
We are also particularly interested in natural and nature-inspired materials science, including geo-inspired materials and bio-mimetic phenomena.
Joint collaborations in uur group (currently 3 professors, 2 researchers, 1 adjunct professor that jointly supervise postdocs, PhD students and master students), are veryimportant for the group’sout productive and successful progress.
The differences in background and research interests among the group PIs warrant interdisciplinary research, while at the same time ensuring close interests and efficient collaboration within the team. This makes our current group very robust.
The group has a strong interdisciplinary profile of high international standing, and consequently also ranks very highly in the national research landscape.
The group publishes very original contributions to the field, some of which find their way into very high impact journals and are quite well-received by the scientific community in terms of overall citations.
The group has several very good established long-term stable international complementary and interdisciplinary collaborations, including extensive exchanges and mobility, with leading research groups around the world (Nordic countries, EU, Latin-America, Asia, USA and others),
including with groups that work experimentally, with simulations, or theory. The group serves Norway’s interests by educating highly qualified PhD students, who often continue their careers in prestigious institutions.
Over the past 10 years, the group has coordinated several projects with a total value of more than 10 MEUR in external funding, that in addition has released significant NTNU central funding.
Many of the ongoing researcher projects in the group have a foundational character and therefore contribute to overall economic development.
The group makes ample and fruitful use of existing home resources (the Soft and Complex Matter Lab at NTNU, coupled to use of national infrastructure such as NTNU Nanolab), as well as extensive use of international large-scale synchrotron and neutron facilities, in addition to labs of international collaborators.
The equipment and method infrastructure located in the Soft and Complex Matter Lab at IFY has purposely been “collected” and put together in order to tackle timely basic physical science problems, hand in hand with applied research, from the nanoscale via the mesoscale to the macroscale.
Thus, not only is the group’s research profile unique nationally and internationally, but also the way infrastructure is coherently organized, used and operated by this group is quite unique.
The group contributes to produce innovation through patents as well as by projects involving national and international companies and applied research labs, and we have altogether approx. 80 patent applications granted or pending in Europe, USA etc.
The group is involved in many research projects with industry – not only in Norway but also inside and outside Europe (Nordic countries, EU, Latin-America and others). In fact, two of the PIs have been employed in industry 100% in periods.
The group also promotes secondments of young group members to industrial partners as well as, vice versa, hosting staff from industrial and academic partners as visitors in the group. All this contributes to the societal relevance and value of the group.s’ present and future activities.
The group is important in relation to NTNU’s strategies, because of its high-quality interdisciplinary research and its important international network. The group’s work on sustainable materials and science sustainability is a key strength.
Our interdisciplinary group working on the borderline between fundamental applied physics, fits very good within the present and expected future local and gobal strategies by focusing on issues with societal relevance that are important for the green transition, health and economy,
through research on sustainable composite matter based on low-cost, abundant, energy efficient natural materials, and therefore also the societal impact dimension of the group was highly rated in the recent evaliatuon of natural sciences in Norway (EVALNAT).
From soft to complex matter, from nano to macro, in the context of the Soft and Complex Matter Lab activties most often mean using soft matter based “processing”, towards fabrication of complex matter, including composite functional materials and their potential applications.
Thus, although soft matter science is an essential ingredient in this process, it is merely a smaller part than the whole picture.
We try to reduce complexity to simplicity as much as possible without loosing the essence.