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

这个由分析和表面化学计划支持的学院早期职业发展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。Higgins教授和他在堪萨斯州立大学的学生将研究这些用于平板显示器的薄膜材料的介观结构、电子和动力学特性。这一综合职业研究项目将为学生提供机会，了解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特性。这项工作将使用提供亚微米空间分辨率的最先进的光学显微镜方法。在这个项目中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，用于本科生的工作和一门新的化学显微镜课程。许多具有科学和技术意义的材料涉及极小距离尺度上的电子、结构和化学性质的空间变化。为了在这种空间尺度上设计出具有所需特征的材料，有必要开发出在接近单分子极限的情况下对其性质进行量化的方法。这一职业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的液晶材料的这种性质。本科生和研究生将接触到这些新方法的应用，以学习这些有可能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.