Soft condensed matter is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology. It covers a variety of physical, mostly liquid or gel-like states and systems, which are easily deformable by thermal stresses and fluctuations. Complex fluids such as liquid crystals, colloidal suspensions, glasses, amphiphilic mixtures, polymeric liquids, foams, gels, granular matter and a number of biologically relevant substances fall into this category.

Soft matter is ubiquitous and shares the common feature that the generic physical behaviour occurs at energy scales comparable to thermal energies at room temperature. It also shows a distinct propensity to self-assemble into more complex, mesoscopic structures which determine its mechanical, optical and rheological properties.

A particular focus of my research is on liquid crystals and nano-composite materials. I have also an interest in coarse-grained simulation of DNA and RNA. We try to understand the structural and dynamical behaviour of these systems. This requires modelling of mesoscopic time and length scales between those of the microscopic world of atoms and the macroscopic world we live in. Mesoscopic length scales range roughly from several nanometres (10^-9 m) to micrometres (10^-6 m).

Personal webpage: https://www.oliverhenrich.com

Soft condensed matter physics

Coarse-grained simulation of DNA and RNA

Structure, rheology and microfluidics of liquid crystals

New soft and functional composite materials

Mesoscopic simulation methods for fluid dynamics and complex fluids

High-performance computing

Algorithm development and research software engineering