MDI Seminar - William Dichtel, 2/23/12 at 12:30 p.m.
FEBRUARY 23, 2012 | |
 | William DichtelCornell University Chemistry and Chemical Biology Dichtel Research Group Title: Bottom-up Synthesis of Structurally Precise Organic Materials Abstract: The continuing development of organic semiconductors will bring about efficient solar cells, flexible displays, ubiquitous radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, improved lighting technologies, and more sensitive chemical sensors. Organic materials are inexpensive and offer the promise of tuning device properties through rational design and chemical synthesis. Simply controlling their chemical structure is not sufficient, as molecular or polymer films must achieve long-range overlap of their molecular orbitals to transport charge efficiently. The organization of complementary organic semiconductors into covalent organic frameworks (COFs) that have two-dimensional layered morphologies ideal for photovoltaic performance will be discussed. Progress towards the bottom-up synthesis of narrow strips of carbon known as graphene nanoribbons will also be presented. Biography: William Dichtel received a B.S. from MIT and Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley, both in Chemistry. His graduate research was advised by Jean M. J. Fréchet. He performed postdoctoral research in the groups of Fraser Stoddart (then at UCLA) and James Heath (Caltech) from 2005-2008. In 2008, Dichtel accepted an appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. He is a recent recipient of the NSF CAREER and 3M Nontenured Faculty Awards. |
Updated on 04/03/2012