CAREER: Well-Defined Hybrid Materials as a Versatile Tool to Study Energy Transfer Processes

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Non-Technical AbstractOne of the main challenges facing humanity in the 21st century is the supply of secure and sustainable energy, of which consumption will only continue to grow as the human population increases. This project tackles the engineering and design of well-defined hybrid materials, which could be applied towards effective solar energy utilization. Metal-organic crystalline materials produced by self-assembly could enable us to reach these goals and, thereby, affect the state of future energy generation and storage. This project also integrates the development of the Carolinian Women in Science (Wi-Sci) Supportive Network, which addresses the workforce demand in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The proposed Wi-Sci initiative integrates educational and research opportunities for female students in STEM disciplines by establishing intercollegiate scientific exchanges and collaborations, providing and promoting multidisciplinary research opportunities for female scientists in different research groups, and organizing educational workshops focused on attraction and retention of women in the STEM disciplines. The major goal of the Wi-Sci initiative is to create and grow a network of support at more than 60 Carolinian institutions of higher education, including 20 historically black colleges and universities, and, therefore, increase opportunities for women to occupy at least 50% of the new positions projected for STEM disciplines in the Carolinas.Technical AbstractEnergy transfer in a predesigned pathway is an emerging field of interest for a broad scientific community and required for the development of the next generation of solar cells, photocatalysts, sensors, light-emitting diodes, and switches. With support from the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program in the Division of Materials Research and the Chemical Structure, Dynamics and Mechanisms B program in the Division of Chemistry, the major goal of this project is the preparation of crystalline hybrid materials with a predesigned pathway for energy transfer that significantly enhance energy utilization efficiency and, thereby, drastically modify the existing energy and material landscape. The advantages of utilizing the proposed materials for energy transfer studies are as follows: (i) scaffold modularity, which allows tuning of photophysical properties of the material; (ii) crystallinity, which provides a platform for systematic studies of energy transfer mechanisms compared to amorphous polymers; and (iii) porosity, in combination with structural modularity, which allows studying of different energy transfer pathways involving organic linkers, metal nodes, and guest molecules. Moreover, the self-assembly approach proposed for material synthesis allows replication of the hierarchical organization of hundreds of chromophores observed in the natural photosystem. Integration of educational and research opportunities for high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students, with a special emphasis on women in STEM disciplines, is also a top priority of this project.