Ye Yuan

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Yuan

First Name

Ye

ORCID

0000-0003-3020-0700

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Publications 1 - 10 of 14

Structural Colors from Amyloid-Based Liquid Crystals
Jin, Tonghui; Yuan, Ye; Bagnani, Massimo; et al. (2024)
Advanced Materials
The helical periodicity and layered structure in cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) may be tuned to generate structural color according to the Bragg's law of diffraction. A wide range of natural-based materials such as condensed DNA, collagen, chitin, cellulose, and chiral biopolymers exhibit cholesteric phases with left-handed helixes and ensued structural colors. Here, the possibility of using amyloid CLCs is reported to prepare films with iridescent color reflection and opposite handedness. Right-handed CLCs assembled by left-handed amyloid fibrils are dried into layered structures with variable pitch controlled by the addition of glucose. Circularly polarized light with the same handedness of amyloid CLCs helix is reflected in the Bragg regime. Varying the drying speed leads to the switching between films with a rainbow-like color gradient and large area uniform color. It is confirmed that the origin of the colors derives from the layered structures of the amyloid CLCs, given the negligeable birefringence of the films, calculated from optical rotatory dispersion. These findings provide a facile approach to constructing biosourced cholesteric materials and introduce an original class of proteinaceous materials for the generation of structural colors from right-handed circularly polarized light.
Single-Step Control of Liquid–Liquid Crystalline Phase Separation by Depletion Gradients
Lin, Dongdong; Bagnani, Massimo; Almohammadi, Hamed; et al. (2024)
Advanced Materials
Fine-tuning nucleation and growth of colloidal liquid crystalline (LC) droplets, also known as tactoids, is highly desirable in both fundamental science and technological applications. However, the tactoid structure results from the trade-off between thermodynamics and nonequilibrium kinetics effects, and controlling liquid–liquid crystalline phase separation (LLCPS) in these systems is still a work in progress. Here, a single-step strategy is introduced to obtain a rich palette of morphologies for tactoids formed via nucleation and growth within an initially isotropic phase exposed to a gradient of depletants. The simultaneous appearance is shown of rich LC structures along the depleting potential gradient, where the position of each LC structure is correlated with the magnitude of the depleting potential. Changing the size (nanoparticles) or the nature (polymers) of the depleting agent provides additional, precise control over the resulting LC structures through a size-selective mechanism, where the depletant may be found both within and outside the LC droplets. The use of depletion gradients from depletants of varying sizes and nature offers a powerful toolbox for manipulation, templating, imaging, and understanding heterogeneous colloidal LC structures.
Thermo-Responsive Liquid Crystalline Phases of Cellulose Nanocrystals with Polymer Brushes
Sun, Qiyao; Zhong, Yuanping; Yuan, Ye; et al. (2023)
Increasing risk of glacial lake outburst floods from future Third Pole deglaciation
Zheng, Guoxiong; Allen, Simon K.; Bao, Anming; et al. (2021)
Nature Climate Change
Warming on Earth’s Third Pole is leading to rapid loss of ice and the formation and expansion of glacial lakes, posing a severe threat to downstream communities. Here we provide a holistic assessment of past evolution, present state and modelled future change of glacial lakes and related glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) risk across the Third Pole. We show that the highest GLOF risk is at present centred in the eastern Himalaya, where the current risk level is at least twice that in adjacent regions. In the future, GLOF risk will potentially almost triple as a consequence of further lake development, and additional hotspots will emerge to the west, including within transboundary regions. With apparent increases in GLOF risk already anticipated by the mid-twenty-first century in some regions, the results highlight the urgent need for forward-looking, collaborative, long-term approaches to mitigate future impacts and enhance sustainable development across the Third Pole.
Liquid-liquid crystalline phase separation of filamentous colloids and semiflexible polymers: experiments, theory and simulations
Almohammadi, Hamed; Khadem, Sayyed Ahmad; Azzari, Paride; et al. (2025)
Reports on Progress in Physics
Liquid-liquid crystalline phase separation (LLCPS) is the process by which an initially homogenous single-phase solution composed of a solvent-most frequently water- and a solute-typically rigid or semiflexible macromolecules, polymers, supramolecular aggregates, or filamentous colloids-demixes into two (or more) distinct phases in which one phase is depleted by the solute and features properties of isotropic solutions, whereas the other is enriched by the solute and exhibits liquid crystalline anisotropic properties. Differently from the more common liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of flexible macromolecules, which is a trade-off between entropy and enthalpy, LLCPS is mostly an entropy-controlled process in which the morphology, composition and properties of the new phases depend primarily on kinetics and thermodynamic factors and, unexpectedly, on the history followed to reach a specific point in the phase diagram. This review aims to comprehensively discuss the process of LLCPS from experimental, theoretical, and simulation standpoints. We discuss the main systems and experimental approaches followed over the past decades to induce and control LLCPS, then we delve into the main theoretical and modeling approaches available to rationalize this process, and finally, we expand on how numerical simulations can significantly enrich the understanding of LLCPS. A final section touches on possible applications and the significance of LLCPS beyond pure physics, that is, in the broader context of biology, nanotechnology, and everyday life.
Polymer Induced Liquid Crystal Phase Behavior of Cellulose Nanocrystal Dispersions
Sun, Qiyao; Lütz Bueno, Viviane; Zhou, Jiangtao; et al. (2022)
Booklet SDD 29. Program and Abstracts, Tuesday, April 5th 2022, 29th Edition Swiss Soft Days
Plasmonic Amyloid Tactoids
Yuan, Ye; Almohammadi, Hamed; Probst, Julie; et al. (2021)
Advanced Materials
Despite their link to neurodegenerative diseases, amyloids of natural and synthetic sources can also serve as building blocks for functional materials, while possessing intrinsic photonic properties. Here, it is demonstrated that orientationally ordered amyloid fibrils exhibit polarization-dependent fluorescence, and can mechanically align rod-shaped plasmonic nanoparticles codispersed with them. The coupling between the photonic fibrils in liquid crystalline phases and the plasmonic effect of the nanoparticles leads to selective activation of plasmonic extinctions as well as enhanced fluorescence from the hybrid material. These findings are consistent with numerical simulations of the near-field plasmonic enhancement around the nanoparticles. The study provides an approach to synthesize the intrinsic photonic and mechanical properties of amyloid into functional hybrid materials, and may help improve the detection of amyloid deposits based on their enhanced intrinsic luminescence.
Polymer induced liquid crystal phase behavior of cellulose nanocrystal dispersions
Sun, Qiyao; Lütz Bueno, Viviane; Zhou, Jiangtao; et al. (2022)
Nanoscale Advances
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are a promising bio-based material that has attracted significant attention in the fabrication of functional hybrid materials. The rod-like shape and negative surface charge of CNCs enable their rich colloidal behavior, such as a liquid crystalline phase and hydrogel formation that can be mediated by different additives. This study investigates the effect of depletion-induced attraction in the presence of non-absorbing polyethylene glycol (PEG) of different molecular weights in CNC aqueous dispersions, where the polymer molecules deplete the space around particles, apply osmotic pressure and drive the phase transition. Polarized light microscopy (PLM), rheology, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) are used to characterize the phase behavior over a time period of one month. In our results, pure CNC dispersion shows three typical liquid crystal shear rheology regimes and cholesteric self-assembly behavior. Tactoid nucleation, growth and coalescence are observed microscopically, and eventually the dispersion presents macroscopic phase separation. PEG with lower molecular weight induces weak attractive depletion forces. Tactoid growth is limited, and the whole system turns into a fully nematic phase macroscopically. With PEG of higher molecular weight, attractive depletion force becomes predominant, thus CNC self-assembly is inhibited and nematic hydrogel formation is triggered. Overall, we demonstrate that depletion induced attraction forces by the addition of PEG enable precise tuning of CNC self-assembly and phase behavior with controllable mechanical strength and optical activity. These findings deepen our fundamental understanding of cellulose nanocrystals and advance their application in colloidal systems and nanomaterials.
Understanding Multi-Device Usage Paterns: Physical Device Configurations and Fragmented Workflows
Yuan, Ye; Riche, Nathalie; Marquardt, Nicolai; et al. (2022)
CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
To better ground technical (systems) investigation and interaction design of cross-device experiences, we contribute an in-depth survey of existing multi-device practices, including fragmented workfows across devices and the way people physically organize and confgure their workspaces to support such activity. Further, this survey documents a historically signifcant moment of transition to a new future of remote work, an existing trend dramatically accelerated by the abrupt switch to work-from-home (and having to contend with the demands of home-at-work) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 97 participants, and collected photographs of home setups and open-ended answers to 50 questions categorized in 5 themes. We characterize the wide range of multi-device physical confgurations and identify fve usage patterns, including: partitioning tasks, integrating multi-device usage, cloning tasks to other devices, expanding tasks and inputs to multiple devices, and migrating between devices. Our analysis also sheds light on the benefts and challenges people face when their workfow is fragmented across multiple devices. These insights have implications for the design of multi-device experiences that support people's fragmented workfows.
Thermo-Responsive Liquid Crystalline Phases of Cellulose Nanocrystals with Polymer Brushes
Sun, Qiyao; Zhong, Yuanping; Yuan, Ye; et al. (2023)

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