Research Spotlight

I am interested in developing and optimizing hybrid soft materials. Particularly those where the introduction of anisotropy in an otherwise isotropic structure gives rise to enhanced material properties. As broad as this definition can be, it is the key factor describing my research until now.

Actuators: Thin-film liquid crystal polymer networks under external stimulus

Gimenez-Pinto, V. and Ye. F. Patterning order and disorder with an angle: Modeling single-layer dual-phase nematic elastomer ribbons. RSC Advances, 2019, 9, 8994 - 9000

Gimenez-Pinto, V. et al. Modeling out-of-plane actuation in thin- film nematic polymer networks: From chiral ribbons to auto-origami boxes via twist and topology.  Sci. Rep. 7, 45370; doi: 10.1038/srep45370 (2017).

Modeling microstructural evolution and electrical switching of chiral nematic liquid crystalline textures

Gimenez-Pinto and Selinger. Modeling 3-D chiral nematic texture evolution with electric switching (2018)
Preprint available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.03468

Ordering of particle suspensions by medium crystallization

My most recent publication in the topic

V. Gimenez-Pinto. Ordering hard-sphere particle suspensions by medium crystallization: Effect of size and interaction strength. Phys. Rev. E 105, L032601 – Published 3 March 2022

Less recent publication (older than 5 years)

D. Zhao, V. Gimenez-Pinto, A. M. Jimenez, L. Zhao, J. Jestin, S. K. Kumar, B. Kuei, E. D. Gomez, A. Prasad, L. S. Schadler, M. M. Khani, B. C. Benicewicz, Tunable Multiscale Nanoparticle Ordering by Polymer Crystallization, ACS Central Science DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.7b00157 (2017)