February 5 (Thursday) Sascha Hilgenfeldt (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Cellular Matter: The Fly Eye and Other Interfaces
Abstract:
Micro- and nanoscale structures are a key focus of quantitative science today, emphasizing the importance of interfaces between structural elements. Cellular Matter is a material for which interfacial energy dominates, consists of space-filling blocks such as grains, bubbles, or biological cells. The geometry of the blocks and the properties of the entire material are intimately related.
Liquid foam provides a uniquely accessible model system for Cellular Matter in experiment and theory, including non-equilibrium dynamics and statistics (coarsening), where intriguing relations between bubble geometry and coarsening rates arise. But interfacial energy formalisms can also be directly applied to biological systems. Inspired by foam studies, we quantitatively model the geometry of the Drosophila retina, where membrane elasticity and adhesion biochemistry are important. In addition, we can infer dynamical features of tissue morphogenesis, indicating a rich area of new applications for interfacial mechanics.