CAREER: High Resolution Optical Microscopy Studies of Mesostructured Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystal Films

这个教师早期职业发展（CAREER）项目，在分析和表面化学计划的支持下，将使用近场扫描光学显微镜来研究聚合物分散液晶薄膜。 堪萨斯州立大学的希金斯教授和他的学生将研究这些薄膜材料的中尺度结构、电子和动力学特性，以应用于平板显示器。 这个综合的CAREER研究项目将为学生提供学习有机介观结构系统的空间限制如何影响其与平板显示器相关的性能的机会。 国家的最先进的光学显微镜的方法，提供亚微米的空间分辨率将在这项工作中使用。 其他教育项目将在此项目期间开发涉及计算机模拟数据分析，模拟电子学，傅立叶变换和色谱分离用于本科课程的工作和化学显微镜的新课程。 许多科学和技术感兴趣的材料涉及在非常小的距离尺度上的电子，结构和化学性质的空间变化。 为了设计出在这种空间尺度上具有所需特征的材料，有必要开发在近单分子极限下量化性能的方法。 这个CAREER研究项目将应用最先进的近场光学显微镜来研究聚合物分散液晶材料的这些特性。 本科生和研究生将接触到这些新方法的应用，以研究这些材料，有潜力用于制造平板显示设备。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project, supported in the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, will use near- field scanning optical microscopy to study polymer-dispersed liquid crystal thin films. Professor Higgins and his students at Kansas State University will study the mesoscale structural, electronic, and dynamical properties of these thin film materials for application as flat-panel displays. This integrated CAREER research project will afford students the opportunity to learn how the spatial confinement of organic mesostructured systems affects their properties as relates to flat-panel displays. State-of-the-art optical microscopy methods that provide submicron spatial resolution will be used in this work. Other educational projects to be developed during this project involve computer simulations on data analysis, analog electronics, Fourier transforms, and chromatographic separations for use in undergraduate course work and a new course in chemical microscopy. Many materials of scientific and technological interest involve spatial variations in the electronic, structural, and chemical properties on very small distance scales. In order to devise materials with desired features on this spatial scale it is necessary to develop methods for quantifying the properties at the near single molecule limit. This CAREER research project will apply state-of-the-art near-field optical microscopy to the study of such properties of polymer-dispersed liquid crystalline materials. Undergraduate and graduate students will be exposed to the application of these new methods to study these materials that have potential for use in making flat-panel display devices.