Slobodan Žumer

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Slobodan Žumer, born in Ljubljana 1945, started his career in physics with BSc in 1967 & PhD in 1973 all from the University of Ljubljana and a postdoc at University of Brussels (1975-76). In the periods 1984-86 & 1992-93 he was visiting scientist & professor at Liquid Crystal Institute, KSU, Kent, USA. Since 1986, he is a professor of physics at the University of Ljubljana, and a scientific adviser at Jozef Stefan Institute. He is the head of the inter-institutional research program ťPhysics of Soft Matter, Surfaces, and NanostructuresŤ coupling Jozef Stefan Institute and University of Ljubljana.

He is also a member of the modeling & simulation group “Physics of soft and partially ordered matter” of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at University of Ljubljana. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics from 2005-07. In the period 2008-12 he was the president of the International Liquid Crystal Society and since 2014 also it’s Honored Member. He is an American Physical Society Fellow and a member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received the Zois lifetime achievements award for his research in the field of theoretical soft matter physics and the Freéderiksz Medal of the Russian Liquid Crystal Society for the outstanding scientific results in the field of liquid crystals. His research interests are modeling, simulations, & theory of topological soft mater including liquid crystals, polymers, nematic elastomers, colloids, active systems, composites, and their use for optics & photonics.

Complet CV

Personal website

Five selected recent publications:

J. Hess, G. Poy, J.-S. B. Tai, S. Žumer, and I. I. Smalyukh, Control of Light by Topological Solitons in Soft Chiral Birefringent Media, Phys. Rev. X 10, 031042 (2020) [Physics focus story].

G. Poy, A. J. Hess, I. I. Smalyukh, and S. Žumer, Chirality-Enhanced Periodic Self-Focusing of Light in Soft Birefringent Media, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 077801 (2020).

S. Čopar, J. Aplinc, Z. Kos, S. Žumer and M. Ravnik, Topology of Three-Dimensional Active Nematic Turbulence Confined to Droplets, Phys. Rev. X 9, 031051 (2019).

P. Almeida, J. Canejo, U. Mur, S. Čopar, P. L. Almeida, S. Žumer and M. H. Godinho, Spotting plants’ microfilament morphologies and nanostructures, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 116 (279 13188 (2019).

A. Nych, Jun-ichi Fukuda, U. Ognysta, S. Žumer, and I. Muševič, Spontaneous formation and dynamics of half-skyrmions in a chiral liquid-crystal film, Nat. Phys.13, 1215-1220 (2017).

Other publications:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7Af45SwAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Slobodan_Zumer

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4872-9530

Physics of soft matter: theory, modeling, and simulations

Subjects: anisotropic soft matter, liquid crystals, confined liquid crystals, topological soft matter, colloidal dispersions, colloidal crystals, colloidal liquid crystals, lyotropics, chromonics, soft composites, photonic crystals, liquid crystalline elastomers, polymer dispersed liquid crystals, active soft matter.

Phenomena: ordering, transitions, anisotropic elasticity, defects, complex structures, confinement, topology and geometry of soft structures, linking & knotting in liquid crystals, skyrmions in chiral nematics, structural forces, fluctuation forces, Casimir effect, dynamics, hydrodynamics, active dynamics, magnetic relaxation, wetting&dewetting, optics, photonics, light scattering, wave guiding, plasmonics, etc.

Head of the research program Physics of Soft Matter, Surfaces, and Nanostructures

Member of the modeling & simulation groupPhysics of soft and partially ordered matter

Current projects:

Research program: Physics of Soft Matter, Surfaces, and Nanostructures  (2005–2021, Head)

Cost action CA17139 European Topology Interdisciplinary Action EUTOPIA (2018–2022, WG5 Co-leader)

EC Marie Curie Fellowship of G. Poy (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018) OPTOSOL: Interacting optical and topological solitons in frustrated cholesterics  (2019–2021, supervisor)