Soft matter instrumentation

In addition to using commercial laboratory equipment for soft matter investigation, we design and build our own instruments to study soft materials in greater detail. Although developing instruments is not our main goal, we create custom setups when existing tools cannot fully answer our research questions. These include specialised versions of laser speckle imaging (for studying tiny movements in non-transparent materials), atomic force microscopy combined with infrared spectroscopy, and advanced rheometry techniques to measure flow and deformation. We also expand and enhance existing techniques, for example by adding features such as 3D-printed parts, microfluidic devices, and custom hardware or software.