On December 11-12, 2025, in Lviv at the I.R. Yukhnovsky Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (ICMP) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the XX Working Meeting of the Scientific Council on the problem of "Soft Matter Physics" took place.
The Scientific Council, established on the initiative of Academician of the NAS of Ukraine Igor Yukhnovsky, marked its 25th anniversary and was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of its organizer. Academician of the NAS of Ukraine Igor Yukhnovsky chaired the council for 24 years.
The meeting discussed current issues of this extremely broad interdisciplinary field of science, as well as historical excursions into various directions of its development. Thus, the head of the Scientific Council, Academician of the NAS of Ukraine Igor Mryglod, spoke about the quarter-century period of the council's functioning, its tasks, achievements, and historical evolution, as well as highlighted the role of Academician Igor Yukhnovsky and Nobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes in its creation.
The first group of current issues was devoted to the statistical theory of electrolytes and the theory of the critical point of fluids – scientific directions to which Igor Yukhnovsky made an extremely significant and well-known contribution in world science. Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine Myroslav Holovko, as one of Yukhnovsky’s first students and now one of the world’s leading experts in the theory of liquids and soft matter in general, spoke about a century of the statistical theory of electrolyte solutions and the contribution of Yukhnovsky’s school to the theory. Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Oleksandr Chalyi from the O.O. Bohomolets National Medical University and Academician of the NAS of Ukraine Leonid Bulavin from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv presented a report on the physics of the critical point of fluids.
A highly relevant and much-discussed block of reports was devoted to nanocrystals and quantum dots. In particular, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine Volodymyr Dzhagan from the V.E. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the NAS of Ukraine presented a report on thin films of quantum dots, their physics, and technological applications. The presentation by Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Andriy Baumketner from the ICMP named after I.R. Yukhnovsky of the NAS of Ukraine concerned computer modeling of colloidal nanocrystals aimed at increasing their efficiency in optoelectronics. Both reports also included new results obtained within the framework of ongoing projects of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (NRFU).
Interesting discussions were related to reports on the development of the statistical theory of liquids and flows. In particular, Professor Orest Pizio from the National Autonomous University of Mexico focused on some unresolved problems in the theory of liquids confined by surfaces. Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Andriy Trokhymchuk from the ICMP named after I.R. Yukhnovsky of the NAS of Ukraine spoke about current problems in studying the equation of state of flows, while Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Viktor Pergamenshchik from the Institute of Physics of the NAS of Ukraine and the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw) emphasized the problem of correctly defining and accounting for free volume, as well as the "physics" of the statistical sum.
Reports by Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Viktor Reshetnyak from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the University of Leeds (UK) on controlled liquid crystal lenses, and Professor Serhiy Minkov from the University of Georgia (USA) on experimental studies of dynamic soft matter systems, attracted considerable interest. The latter presented a highly interesting analysis of current trends in soft matter physics. In the same block, a report by young scientist Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Khrystyna Haidukivska from the ICMP named after I.R. Yukhnovsky of the NAS of Ukraine on continuous polymer models was presented.
A relevant research direction in soft matter physics is connected with medical issues. In this block, Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Roman Lesyk from Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University shared the experience of his research group in the search for new drugs and spoke about the interaction of academic science with "big pharma." Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Yaroslav Ilnytsky from the ICMP named after I.R. Yukhnovsky of the NAS of Ukraine spoke about the application of mesoscopic modeling to medically motivated problems, and Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Maksym Druchok from the same Institute presented a report on the generation of compounds with predetermined properties using machine learning.
Two more reports were devoted to the application of computer modeling to the description of soft matter objects. In particular, Director of the M.M. Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Serhiy Perepelytsia, spoke about modeling metallized DNA – from biomolecule to functional nanomaterial, and Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Taras Patsagan focused on modeling the chelation phenomena of heavy metal ions and spoke about progress in the development of the Interdisciplinary Center for Computer Modeling at the ICMP named after I.R. Yukhnovsky of the NAS of Ukraine, which is being created thanks to an NRFU project under the program "Research Infrastructures for Advanced Scientific Research."
At the conclusion of the Working Meeting, scientific publications dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Academician Igor Yukhnovsky were presented: the monograph by Igor Yukhnovsky and Myroslav Holovko "Statistical theory of classical equilibrium systems" (Kyiv: Akademperiodyka, 2025. – 444 p.), as well as a special issue of the journal "Condensed Matter Physics."
According to information from the I.R. Yukhnovsky Institute of Condensed Matter Physics of the NAS of Ukraine
