Frontier research for new materials
What are colloids?
Colloidal comes from the Greek word for glue. It refers to mixtures in which microscopically dispersed insoluble particles are suspended throughout another substance. In nature, milk is a good example where butterfat globules are dispersed within a water-based solution.
The project
The Microflusa project proposes to design and assemble colloidal molecules by using microfluidic technology. This technology has demonstrated its capacity to produce and handle micrometric droplets under excellent control. It could advance the production of colloidal molecules to unprecedented speed. Whereas now one millimeter cube of colloidal material would take years to produce, Microflusa envisages producing one million of building blocks in a second. This acceleration would enable the creation of colloidal materials with innovative functionalities for industrial purposes.
What for?
Microflusa's vision is to use colloidal building blocks for creating photonic materials with complete band gap. Such materials enable the control of the generation and flow of light. They would allow for much more and much faster transportation of information than what is currently possible on a computer chip. Being able to produce 3D photonic material based on colloids would certainly be a major breakthrough in the field of optoelectronics.
More information is available on the website of the EU-funded Microflusa project.
