The group of soft matter and mesostructured materials of the University of Navarra receives international recognition.

Wenceslao González-Viñas PHOTO: Manuel Castells

The group of soft matter and mesostructured materials of the University of Navarra has been placed on the world map of this research subject . In Spain there is only one other group that appears on this map.

According to Wenceslao González-Viñas, from department of Physics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Navarra, "in our group we focus on two important aspects of subject soft matter: the study of colloidal phase transitions and the training of condensation patterns on advanced surfaces. The former involves small particles (on the order of the size of bacteria) and takes into account the effect of external agents (applied fields) on their ordered and/or disordered aggregation. It has high-tech applications (photonics...) and interest in life sciences. In the second case, we study the condensation of different vapors (the simplest is water) on structured surfaces at microscopic / nanoscopic scale and the effect of the hydrophilicity of the surface considered".

"This topic has applications in self-cleaning surfaces, in biomaterials and in situations where heat transfer is important; as well as in the aspect of cooperation to development that involves the recovery of drinking water from dew", explains the professor of the University of Navarra.

Finally, Wenceslao González-Viñas emphasizes that "we have discovered a partial arrangement of the colloidal particles, while the transition takes place in a high-speed rotating system, related to the spin axis that may be important to obtain state-of-the-art magnetic materials without cracks".

This research developed at the University of Navarra is funded by the Government of Navarra, the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Union (scholarship Marie Curie).