What happens inside soft materials when they deform?
New collaborative study has directly mapped what happens inside liquid crystals when they are deformed
11 Jul 2025
New research led by the University of Liverpool, UK, in collaboration with the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia provides a significant step forward in understanding the micro-scale mechanisms that govern the behaviour of soft materials.
Soft materials are a type of material that can be easily bent, compressed, or indented with minimal force. They are widely used in everyday items such as toothpaste and lotions, and play critical roles in fields like food science, biomedical applications, textiles, and industrial processes, including 3D printing and battery manufacturing.
In a new study published in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, researchers have, for the first time, directly mapped what happens inside liquid crystals (a particular type of soft material) when they are deformed.
The research team used advanced techniques to visualise how these materials respond at the microscopic level to various types of stress and strain. Their findings challenge long-standing assumptions about how easily the internal behaviour of soft materials can be detected with traditional measurements, providing valuable insights for improving manufacturing and processing techniques.
Rheo-microscopy was used to track and quantify dynamic structural changes in soft materials in real time. This method allowed them to distinguish between solid-like and fluid-like behaviours occurring simultaneously within the same material.
One of the study’s key breakthroughs was observing how structural transitions inside the material correlated not with smooth, idealized flow — as previously assumed — but with localized fracture events. These insights provide a foundation for more accurate computational models and have implications for the shelf life, mixing, and extrusion processes of soft materials.
Dr Esther García-Tuñón, Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, led the research. She said, “This is the first study to directly map heterogeneous flows and internal structures in a liquid crystal like this. Until now, most studies relied on bulk mechanical measurements and scattering techniques, which have important limitations. Our method offers a more accessible and detailed way to understand what’s happening inside.”