Task Progress:
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The study was conducted within the scope of the originally proposed research plan. The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and New York University (NYU) researchers worked in closed collaboration with researchers from the NASA Glenn Research Center and engineering team from ZIN Technologies, OH to process and analyze confocal microscopy images of colloids collected in the International Space Station (ISS) experiments in 2020-2021. One exciting aspect of the microgravity experiments in the ISS is the realization that in microgravity we can build large colloidal photonic crystals with a three-dimensional ordered arrangement of particles that survive reentry to Earth. A three-dimensional photonic crystal is the optical analogy to an atomic lattice, in which the refractive index repeats periodically in three directions on the scale of the light wavelength. The particle sizes, shapes, and properties can be varied based on the wavelength of light we wish to control with colloidal photonic crystals. Due to the unique properties, photonic crystals operating at infrared wavelengths are expected to be crucial for applications in remote sensing, fiber-optic communication, chemical analysis, biomedical diagnostics, optical computing, security, and defense. Fabrication of large three-dimensional colloidal crystals on Earth remains a challenge as the particle assembly is strongly influenced by gravity effects, such as particle sedimentation, convection, and jamming.
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Articles in Peer-reviewed Journals
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Lam MA, Khusid B, Kondic L, Meyer WV. "Role of diffusion in crystallization of hard-sphere colloids." Physical Review E. 2021 Nov;104(5-1):054607. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.104.054607 ; PMID: 34942784 , Nov-2021
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Papers from Meeting Proceedings
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Lei Q, Khusid B, Kondic L, Hollingsworth AD, Chaikin PM, Meyer WV, Reich AJ. "Phase transitions in colloidal suspensions of spheres and ellipsoids under microgravity." 38th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, Houston, TX, November 9-12, 2022. 38th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, Houston, TX, November 9-12, 2022. Paper ID 13. , Nov-2022
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Papers from Meeting Proceedings
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Lei Q, Khusid B, Kondic L, Hollingsworth AD, Chaikin PM, Meyer WV, Reich AJ. "Colloidal phase transitions under microgravity." 11th Annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference, Washington, DC, July 25-28, 2022. 11th Annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference, Washington, DC, July 25-28, 2022. Paper ID 118. , Jul-2022
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Papers from Meeting Proceedings
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Meyer WV, Khusid B, Kondic L, Lei Q, Hollingsworth AD, Chaikin PM. "Recent experiments on hard sphere colloidal crystallization in microgravity on the International Space Station." ACS Spring 2022 (American Chemical Society Spring Meeting 2022), San Diego, CA, March 20-24, 2022. ACS Spring 2022 (American Chemical Society Spring Meeting 2022), San Diego, CA, March 20-24, 2022. Paper ID 3703722. , Mar-2022
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Patents
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63/365667. Provisional patent issued June 2022. Jun-2022 Murphy M, Lei Q, Khusid B, Hollingsworth AD, Chaikin PM, Meyer WV. "Method and Apparatus for Fabrication of Large Three-Dimensional Single Colloidal Crystals for Bragg Diffraction of Infrared Light."
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