ABSTRACT
I discuss how soft matter, additive manufacturing, and directed assembly can be brought together to make new technologies for synthetic chemistry, biomedical materials, and organs-on-a-chip. I show how nanoparticle surfactants form solid-like assemblies at liquid-liquid interfaces with massive mechanical anisotropy and a bending modulus that can be tuned from kT to 10^6 kT [1]. These solid-like liquid interfaces allow us to 3D-print liquids into complex structures, a technique we term ‘liquid-phase 3D-printing’ [2]. New physics emerges from capillary interactions in these systems, whose scaling is captured by a simple model. Applications are shown in all-liquid microfluidics [3], self-building materials [4], and novel platforms for active matter [5]. Some emerging applications in vascularised tissue fabrication and lab automation will also be discussed.
[1] Forth, J. et al. Nano Letters (2021)
[2] Forth, J. et al. Advanced Materials (2018)
[3] Feng, W. et al. Nature Communications (2019)
[4] Thapa, A. et al. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (2025)
[5] Kim, P. Y. et al. Advanced Materials (2025).
BIOGRAPHY
Joe is a colloid scientist (MSci Physics, Bristol, 2011; PhD Physics, Edinburgh, 2015) with interests in 3D Printing, Soft Matter, Microfluidics, Lab Automation, and Tissue Engineering. He held prior appointments at Croda (2016), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2016-2018), and University College London (2018-2023), where he was a Ramsay Memorial Fellow. He has worked on soft matter formulation, novel 3D-printing technology, and nanomedicine for targeted drug delivery. Joe started a joint appointment between the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at University of Liverpool in April 2023.
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