Giovanni Volpe
5th Münster Symposium on Intelligent Matter (MüSIM) (Flyer)
Date: 24 June 2026
Time: 15:00
Place: Center for Soft Nanoscience (SoN), Münster, Germany
Microscale systems offer a unique opportunity to engineer machines whose function emerges from the interplay of geometry, interactions, and fluctuations. In this talk, I will present our work on smart machines at the microscale, combining nanofabrication, programmable interactions, and advanced optical methods to design and control colloidal micromechanisms and metamaterials.
I will first introduce how nanotechnology enables the realization of colloidal metamachines and microscopic mechanisms, where shape and mechanical constraints are engineered to produce targeted motion and response in fluid environments. I will then show how smart microscopy and optical manipulation—including high-resolution imaging, automated tracking, and light-based control—allow us to probe these machines in real time and quantify their dynamics. This approach enables precision measurements of effective interaction landscapes, including critical Casimir forces and their relation to fluctuation-induced forces known from QED Casimir physics.