JNoveron-01
Self-organized materials for molecular electronics
Dr. Juan Noveron
Envrionment & Water
Preferred major field of study or minimum required skills
- General Chemistry
- Organic Chemistry
- Any major in STEM will be accepted.
Scholarly significance/intellectual merit
The rapidly growing area of self-organized materials, where directional non-covalent interactions are used to build extended networks with fascinating complexity, is in the dawn of its potential as a producer of new functional advanced materials. Currently, hydrogen bonding, metal-ligand coordination, and pi-pi stacking interactions are currently used as synthetic vectors that drive the self-assembly of new molecular architectures at the nanoscale. We found a new methodology to form nanowires driven by pi-pi stacking interactions that may be used in molecular electronics and nanostructured solar cells.
Research question(s)
What is the supramolecular structure-function relationship of pi-pi stacking networks with respect to their potential to serve as charge carriers in heterojunction organic solar cells?
Methods/techniques/instruments to be learned/utilized
- Synthesis of small molecules
- Crystal growth and design. X-ray crystallography
- Atomic Force Microscopy
- Spin coating
- Photovoltaics device fabrication