-----Original Message----- From: Malis, Oana Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 6:37 PM To: Giuliani, Gabriele F; Nakanishi, Hisao; Ritchie, Kenneth P; Manfra, Michael James; Malis, Oana; Paquay, Linda L; Shalaev, Vladimir M; Yang, Chen; Pushkar, Yulia N; Durbin, Stephen M; Prohofsky, Earl W; Giordano, Nicholas J; Rodriguez, Jorge H; Rokhinson, Leonid P; Pyrak-Nolte, Laura J; Nolte, David D; Reifenberger, Ronald G; akr@physics.purdue.edu; awasser@purdue.edu; batodd@purdue.edu; ebkaufma@purdue.edu; elliottd@purdue.edu; ewcarlson@purdue.edu; gcsathy@purdue.edu; hu4@purdue.edu; kais@purdue.edu; sergei@purdue.edu; yongchen@purdue.edu; yuli@purdue.edu Subject: Peter Voorhees from Northwestern giving Colloquium this week Dear all, Prof. Peter Voorhees, the Chairman of the Materials Engineering Department at Northwestern will be visiting our Department on Thursday and giving the Physics Colloquium. If you want to meet with him, please let me know so I can arrange a time in his schedule. http://www.physics.purdue.edu/colloq/abstract.php?id=354 "Topological Singularities in Materials: Dynamics and Universality" Thursday November 03, 2011 4:00pm 203 Topological singularities are observed in a wide range of two-phase mixtures from bicontinuous structures produced following phase separation to solid-liquid mixtures produced by solidification. We investigate these topological singularities by examining the morphology of a rod embedded in a matrix undergoing pinching by interfacial-energy driven bulk diffusion near the point of pinching. We find a self-similar solution that gives a unique temporal power law and interfacial shape prior to pinching, and self-similar solutions after pinching. The theory is compared to experiments that employ insitu 3D tomography for rods of liquid or solid pinching by solute diffusion in the high diffusivity liquid phase. The excellent agreement between experiment and theory confirms that the interfacial morphology near the singularity is universal both before and after pinching; the shape holds regardless of the material system. This also implies that theory for the time dependence of the pinching process can be used to determine the time required for capillarity driven breakup of two-phase mixtures. Best regards, Oana Oana Malis Assistant Professor Department of Physics Purdue University 525 Northwestern Ave. West Lafayette, IN 47907 Phone: (765) 494-3039 Fax: (765) 494-0706 email: omalis@purdue.edu