Computation and Theory of Soft Materials
Welcome to the world of soft matter! Soft matter is an umbrella term for a variety of seemingly disparate materials, which, for example, include liquid crystals, colloids and polymers, yet sharing certain common features.

With expertise in computation and theory, our research is currently focused on optimally designing soft advanced materials for addressing sustainability issues and devising strategies for their scalable fabrication that exploits self-assembly routes for a range of building blocks, from molecular to microscale. We are particularly interested in designing novel photonic, phononic, mechanical and opto-electronic materials for sensing, lasing and energy harvesting. We are also interested in developing fundamental understanding of experimentally observed phenomena in soft materials. In the pursuit of developing soft advanced materials by design, we develop, adapt and apply a variety of computational methods to investigate the structures, phase behaviour and properties of soft matter, especially colloids and liquid crystals.

Please visit the Research section for more details.

Opportunities News

November 2024
Xi (Oliver) Chen joins The Chakrabarti Group for his MSc by Research. Welcome Oliver!

October 2024
Adam finishes the research placement with Prof. Peter Schall @ University Amsterdam. Welcome back Adam!

Adam visits the Dullens Group at Radboud University in Nijmegen.

September 2024
Adam presents a poster at the 12th Liquid Matter Conference in Mainz.

Dwaipayan talks at the 12th Liquid Matter Conference in Mainz.

Dwaipayan talks at the 2024 Fall Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) in Warsaw.

Dwaipayan visits the Schall Group @ University of Amsterdam.

Dwaipayan talks at the CECAM Workshop on Exploring bio-inspired systems: a synergy between multiscale experimental and computational approaches in Vienna.

Adam starts a research placement with Prof. Peter Schall @ University Amsterdam.

August 2024
Our work on the liquid-liquid phase transitions is now published in PNAS!

Dwaipayan talks at the Applied Physics Seminar Series at Harvard University.

Dwaipayan talks at Columbia University.

Dwaipayan talks at New York University.

July 2024
Dwaipayan talks at the 8th International Soft Matter Conference in Raleigh.

John is all set for his PhD degree. Congrats Dr Hey!

Andreas attends the graduation ceremony. Congrats Dr Neophytou!

Dwaipayan talks at a Soft Matter Mini Symposium held at ETH Zurich.

June 2024
Adam talks at the PhD Seminar Series in the School of Chemistry. Well done Adam!

Dwaipayan takes up the role of Co-Principal Investigator at the International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (SKCM2), while appointed as a Visiting Associate Professor at Hiroshima University.

Dwaipayan starts a 2-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship!

May 2024
Our Invited Perspective is now published in Advanced Physics Research!

April 2024
Dwaipayan talks and chairs a session at the BLCS Annual Meenting 2024 in Oxford.

March 2024
Dwaipayan talks at the Royal Society of Edinburgh of Network Meeting in Edinburgh.

February 2024
An exciting collaboration is in making! More to follow ...

January 2024
Our work on the self-assembly of virus capsids in collaboration with The Manoharan Group is now published in Nanoscale!

Euan attends the CECAM School MolSim-2024 in Amsterdam.

December 2023
Dwaipayan attends a Sandpit on Novel Sensing in Leeds.

November 2023
Dwaipayan talks at the Physics Seminar Series at the University of Hull.

October 2023
Euan Pattinson joins The Chakrabarti Group via the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Topological Design. Welcome Euan!

September 2023
Dwaipayan gives an Invited Talk at The Inaugural Lennard-Jones Centre Meeting: Theory and Molecular Simulation in the Physical Sciences in Cambridge.