About us

Welcome to the Torres-Díaz Lab., at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Our research interests are centered on the fundamental phenomenological behavior and applications of colloidal suspensions composed of anisotropic particles, and suspensions with a polarized behavior generated by the influence of an external field. These kinds of colloids possess directional interactions, which depend on the relative position and orientation while undergoing a translational and rotational Brownian motion. Different applications of colloidal suspensions take advantage of the precise control over individual particles and the particle ensembles using different fields, such as gravitational, electric, magnetic, acoustic, etc. The quantification of the directional behavior generated by anisotropic particles will improve the current applications, such as controlling the directed assembly, tunable/responsive (soft) materials, active suspensions, colloidal delivery systems, heat transfer fluids, photonic materials, separation processes, etc.

Our research combines our expertise in synthesis, characterization, real-time imaging/measurements, and multi-scale modeling, to fundamentally understand the interactions and collective response of suspensions composed of anisotropic particles.