Nanoscale Materials and Devices
In this project we are interested in developing approaches for the design and assembly of nanoscale materials and devices for molecular electronic, photonic and sensor applications. In our work we utilize a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches to control and manipulate materials on the nanoscale. In much of our work we take advantage of self-organizing materials for the design of robust structures, which can be manipulated and controlled through the engineering of specific inter-molecular forces and chemical interactions with surfaces. We combine self-assembly with soft-lithographic and scanned probe lithographic techniques to enable the design of nanoscale test architectures. These include confined molecular assemblies for molecular electronics, polymer-metal heterojunctions for organic electronics and nanoscale metallic structures for plasmonic devices.
Plasmonics
The wedding of electronics and optics research has lead to the development of the area known as plasmonics. Here we are interested in the controlled placement of metallic nanostructures to create plasmon enhanced devices such as optical sources and detectors.
Nanocatalysis
Corrol, porphyrin, corrolazine and phthalocyanine are made into nanoparticles suspensions and are then deposited on energy gradient surfaces. By covering the surface with microfluidic channels and flowing reactants through these particle filled channels; catalytic properties can be studied. Surface interactions and morphology of the particles can be examined by using confocal microscopy and AFM. Surface energy has a great influence on particle size and dispersity. It was found that on hydrophobic OTS surfaces the corrolazine nanoparticles retain their solution phase character and size, however, with increasing surface energy the particles are found to split into higher density, smaller particles.
