ESS Symposium on Crystallography for Soft Matter

Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry, Prague, Czech Republic

Diffraction is a standard technique to study arrangements of atoms (crystal structure), alignment, texture and grain structure in hard matter. Similar issues arise in soft matter, where material properties (e.g. mechanical functioning, transport properties, internal surface, optical properties etc) are highly influenced by analogues to these quantities formed by the arrangements of ensembles of molecules, often in a solvent, such as amphilipilic molecules or polymers rather than atoms. The structures formed consequentially occur at longer length-scales, and the role of thermal motions is quite different.

This meeting brings together those working in highly ordered forms of soft matter from biology, polymer science and the colloidal domain with the following objectives:

• Bringing together a community working in this science field.
• Discussing instrumentation, and in particular the specific characteristics which are peculiar to these investigations.
• Defining specific requirements for neutron instruments to enable such research.

Dr. Garvey, Christopher