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

这个由分析和表面化学项目支持的教师早期职业发展（Career）项目将使用近场扫描光学显微镜来研究聚合物分散的液晶薄膜。堪萨斯州立大学的Higgins教授和他的学生将研究这些薄膜材料的中尺度结构、电子和动态特性，以应用于平板显示器。这个综合的CAREER研究项目将使学生有机会了解有机介结构系统的空间限制如何影响其与平板显示相关的特性。提供亚微米空间分辨率的最先进的光学显微镜方法将用于这项工作。在此项目期间，将开发的其他教育项目包括数据分析、模拟电子学、傅立叶变换和色谱分离的计算机模拟，用于本科课程和化学显微镜的新课程。许多具有科学和技术意义的材料在非常小的距离尺度上涉及电子、结构和化学性质的空间变化。为了在这个空间尺度上设计出具有所需特征的材料，有必要开发出在近单分子极限下量化材料性质的方法。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，研究这些有潜力用于制造平板显示设备的材料。

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.