Velev Research Group

Jul 2008: Our research on 'colorful and spherical nanoscale assemblies on superhydrophobic surfaces' hits the news headlines. This work has been published in Advanced Materials

Feb 2008: Highlights in the media about our research on "Induced-Charge Electrophoresis of Metallodielectric Particles" which has been published in Physical Review Letters

Shalini Gupta became the 4^th member of the Velev group at NCSU to defend her Ph.D. on September 11, 2007. Before doing so (and passing with flying colors), Shalini transferred overseas in the UK and traveled to India to be wed to her long term fiancée, Ashish. Shalini has begun her post-doc at Imperial College in London, UK. We would like to congratulate Shalini on all of her accomplishments!!! Good luck with everything you do Shalini! The group will miss you dearly!

Feb 2007: Highlights in the media about our research on "Remotely Powered Self-Propelling Particles and Micropumps Based on Miniature Diodes" which has been published in Nature Materials

May 2006: Dr. Orlin Velev receives the prestigious Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award

Dr. Velev is selected as a recipient of the prestigious Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award. Dr. Velev is also recognized as an outstanding teacher in the College of Engineering and inducted into the NCSU Academy of Outstanding teachers.

Ketan Bhatt took sometime out of his busy schedule of solving crosswords to do some research and eventually get a Doctor of Philosophy. Everybody enjoyed his cool presentation and the tiramisu cake afterwords.

Apr 2006: Dr. Stellacci visits the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Dept. at NCSU to give a seminar

On Monday April 24, 2006, Dr. Francesco Stellacci of Massachusetts Institute of Technology visited our department and gave an interesting presentation titled "Complex Supramolecular Self-Assembly: A Tool to Generate Novel Nano-Materials and Printing Techniques." This seminar was a joint event with the Department of Physics. Dr. Stellacci showed how patterned DNA SAMs can be used as masters for a novel printing technique for organic materials called Supramolecular NanoStamping (SuNs). This method, like the DNA/RNA information transfer, uses the reversible assembly of DNA double strands as a way of transferring patterns from a surface to another. One of the main advantages of SuNs is that multiple DNA strands (each encoding different information) can be printed at the same time, thus allowing for a complex chemical pattern to be formed, much like Gutenberg movable type. Dr. Stellacci graduated the Politecnico di Milano in 1998 with a thesis on photochromic materials. He then moved to the University of Arizona as a post-doctoral scholar and worked on two-photon microfabrication of three dimensional metallic structures. In September 2002 he was appointed as Assistant Professor of Materials Science at MIT. We would like to thank Dr. Stellacci for very interesting seminar. And, we hope that he can visit us again sometime in the future.

From left to right: Daniel, Suk Tai, Sumit, Shalini, Hartmut, Francesco Stellacci, Bridgette, Olivier, Orlin Velev, Ketan and Vinayak.

Prof. Wagner visits the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Dept. at NCSU to give a seminar

On Monday, April 10, 2006, Prof. Norman Wagner from the University of Delaware gave a very entertaining and captivating lecture entitled " The Rheology of Colloidal & Nanoparticle Dispersions: \"STF armor\"- Nanoparticle Composites for flexible ballistic materials." as part of the department seminar series. He was then received by the academic members after participating to a handful of discussions on his bullet-proof jackets based on shear-thickening materials during a lunch with post-docs and graduate students.

The next day Norman Wagner attended presentations by some of our graduate students and post-docs as part of a joint project with the University of Delaware. All projects involving manipulation of colloidal systems via electric fields were discussed. Following morning session, the advances on the joint project were then assessed during a very productive lunch meeting. More meetings involving all parties of the joint project are planned and we will be glad to visit the University of Delaware sometime during the summer and keep the collaboration going.

Standing from left to right: Daniel, Orlin Velev, Vinayak, Norman Wagner, Bridgette, Olivier, Shalini, Sumit, Suk Tai
Sitting from left to right:Hartmut and Ketan

Dr. Brian Prevo gets on a road trip to California to join the research group of Professor Joseph A. Zasadzinski as a postdoc at University of California, Santa Barbara. Jimmy accompanies him company on the trip.

We have two new members in the group: a new post doc, Dr. Olivier Cayre (another acquisition from the Surfactant and Colloids Group at Hull University), and Dr. Bridgette Budhlall who has joined us as a visiting researcher from Air Products as she makes the transition from industry to academia.

Aug 2005: Our new post doc, Dr. Hartmut Wege, has arrived from Hull, England

Yes, finally he's here after months of anticipation. His arrival was delayed by a freak kite-boarding accident (yup, that's him on crutches in a cast below), but once he was cleared to fly, off he went to his new home in Raleigh, NC. We're excited to have him here. He brings a great spirit to the office and a great deal of expertise in anisotropic particle synthesis to our lab (and he makes a mean espresso too!).

June 2005 : Daniel and Shalini head to England for the Surfactants and Colloid Workshop

Daniel and Shalini journeyed to Hull, England for a visit with our research collaborators in the Dept. of Chemistry at the University of Hull (Surfactants and Colloids Group). During the day the day they exchanged ideas and participated in a workshop where they both presented their latest research. By all accounts the series of seminars were very good, and everyone who participated enjoyed the workshop. This series of visits and seminars has now seen several visits from both sides of the Atlantic and gone on for several years now. It has definitely been a success, and both sides have enjoyed the chance to visit new places, see new people, and learn from each other.

Vesko's group played host, and showed Daniel and Shalu a very good time - cooking them some great meals, and taking them to some great restaurants. As you can see by the picture below (left) with Hartmut (who broke his ankle, delaying his arrival as a post-doc in our group), the weather during their visit was quite good (uncommonly good as some might say). After the official visit, Daniel and Shalini spent the rest of the week touring around various parts of England on their own before meeting up in London to fly back to Raleigh, NC.

In late Nov. 2004, the dept. began moving from the original home to NCSU chemical engineering (Riddick labs, a 45+ yr old bldg in need of repair) on NCSU's main campus to our new building, EB1, on NCSU's Centennial campus. The move wasn't quite completed until Januaryish, and there were still some ongoing HVAC issues and the like that always occur in a new building. The building is great, it is aesthetically pleasing and very functional. An added asset is its location on Centennial campus, which should help foster collaborations with the private sector as well as other departments (such as Materials Science, with whom our dept. shares the building).

Best of all, there is more space for all of our research in our new lab: we have multiple fume hoods, designated areas for microscopy and spectroscopy, as well as individual bench space for everyone. Additionally, we are all in one large office just down the hall from our lab, instead of spread throughout the 3rd floor of Riddick. Perhaps the most major change, is that Dr. Velev's office is no longer just down the hall from the lab (and our offices). He is now on the second floor, relatively removed from the lab - which makes scheduling meetings with him a bit more of a necessity nowadays.

Snapshot of the new lab (left), Shalini working at the microscopy/dielectrophesis set up (middle), and two of our undergrads (Devdutta and Julian) working on gold nanoparticle concentration for Daniel (right).

In late January 2004, Dr. Yeon Hwang, a lecturer and researcher at the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University (SNUT), brought his family to the Raleigh area and proceeded to work in our group for the better part of 2004. His primary project was to investigate antireflective coatings comprised of colloidal particles. As that project got off the ground, he also began expanding and developed an interest in our group's dielectrophoretic particle control efforts.

Over the course of his year here, we hope that he got a good taste of Americana (food, beverages, culture, etc.). His children definitely had an interesting year - a total immersion program as it were - as they attended primary school with other American kids (without having much prior exposure to English). Before he departed, Yeon mentioned that their English still needs some practice, but that their language skills had really improved over the last year (and that cartoons can be good afterall). In any case, working with Yeon was a good experience for the group, and we hope that he and his family have a safe trip back to Seole, Korea where he will jump right back into teaching undergraduates again.

In early Dec. 2004, we were visited by a contingent of the same Surfactants and Colloids group that we visited earlier this year. Directly following the MRS fall conference, Dr. "Vesko" Paunov brought with him two graduate students, Pietro Taylor and Olivier Cayre, plus one of his post-docs, Dr. Hartmut Wege.

The workshop was a great forum for exchange between our two research groups. It was fun and quite educational. Orlin started the session off, and talks were given by Daniel, Shalini, Lindsey, and Suk-Tai as well as all the UK visitors. Also in attendance were graduate students from the Khan group, the Van Zanten group, and the Genzer group in our department, as well as professor Orlando Rojas of the Wood and Paper Science Department.

After the workshop, Orlin took Vesko to a posh Durham restaurant, while the graduate students and post-docs convened at Brian's house for an epicurean, multi-ethnic feast (photo, left). The following day, we took our European guests to lunch at the best pizza place in Raleigh (e.g., Lilly's), and then took a leisurely stroll through Lake Johnson park to work off all the food we'd consumed (photo, right). After the walk, everyone reconvened for an afternoon of bowling. We had a Hull vs. NCSU tournament, and NCSU (read: Velev group) prevailed. And, even though he may not have been the best UK bowler to grace the lanes, we are eagerly expecting Hartmut to join our group this spring as our new post-doc.

August 2004: Israelachvili visits the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Dept. at NCSU to give seminar

On Monday, August 30, 2004, professor Jacob Israelachvili of UC Santa Barbara visited our department and gave a very insightful and entertaining lecture titled "Scaling effects in colloidal and nanoparticle interactions: from the macro- to the pico-scales." This seminar was the first Warren L. McCabe Lecture for the 2004-5 academic year.

These lectures are given by highly renowned researchers, often considered to be at the top of their field, or founders of their field of study. The esteem in which professor Israelachvili is held was clearly visible by both the size and diversity of the audience which included members from many departments, including but not limited to biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, and wood and paper science.

We in the Velev group (along with Angelica Sanchez , and members of the Genzer and Van Zanten groups within our department) had the pleasure of professor Israelachvili's company during an informal wine and cheese gathering held the Sunday afternoon prior to his seminar. We had a wonderful time discussing many different subjects that afternoon. He proved able to hold his own on topics ranging from surface/materials science to the current state of Argentinean viticulture and enology with many laughs in between. Much to our chagrin, no one had brought along their copy of his famous text, "Intermolecular and Surface Forces", which Israelachvili said he gladly would have autographed. Even so, we would like to thank professor Israelachvili for a wonderful time, and a highly entertaining seminar. We hope that he can visit us again sometime in the future.

From left to right: Chris Kloxin, Ketan Bhatt, Lindsey Jerrim, Shalini Gupta, Suk-Tai Chang,
Rajendra Bhat, Jacob Israelachvili, Brian Prevo, Bin Wei, Orlin Velev, Daniel Kuncicky, and Anka Veleva.

From left to right: Jan Genzer and Jacob Israelachvili listening to a story, Daniel and Orlin taking a break from the action, and Brian debating the merits of Australian wine with Jacob Israelachvili.

July 2004: Rossi departs for the frozen tundra of Boston*

Our post-doc, Rossitza Alargova (aka Rossi) first arrived last summer in early July, 2003, from a research position in Japan. Once she adjusted to our boisterous, interactive group, her kindly persona and excellent experimental credentials made her an asset in the lab, and around the office. In the span of one year, she became an integral component of our group, doing excellent work of her own, as well as offering invaluable experimental assistance and theoretical discussions to the rest of us in the Velev group.

While at NCSU, she'd been living in Raleigh alone, apart from her family. In late June, 2004, with the end of her one year stay at NCSU fast approaching, Rossi decided to move up to the frozen (but at least not friendless) tundra-like parking lot of greater Boston, MA to be with her husband Dimitar who is currently based in the Boston area. From there she will explore her options, and we wish her the best of luck. She will definitely be missed.

Bye, Rossi, and best wishes,
- The Velev Group

* There really is no tundra in Boston at all, and the traffic isn't too terrible either, except during rush hour. In fact, New England in general is actually quite pleasant, but we love teasing Rossi about it anyway because we don't want her to leave us here in wonderful Raleigh, NC.

We (Orlin, Brian and Ketan) recently attended the Surfactant and Colloids workshop at University of Hull, UK. This presented us with an opportunity to share our research with our European colleagues and for us to listen to their research endeavors. It was a wonderful experience. Here is what Brian has to say about it Trip to Hull

The Speakers

Kneeling in Front: Ketan and Brian
Standing at Back: Paul Fletcher, Bob Aveyard, John Clint, Colin Bain,
Brian Vincent, Orlin Velev, Vesselin Paunov, and Bernie Binks

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The Speakers