CAREER: Molecular Tools to Tune the Structure-Function Properties of Nanoscale Objects by Reconfiguration of pi-Conjugated Superstructures

迈阿密大学的Jean-Hubert Olivier的研究小组试图开发新的策略来操纵纳米级建筑(尺寸为1/100万米)中有机分子和聚合物的相互作用。首要目标是了解如何精确控制组装路径，以重新配置有机材料的结构，并促进高效的能源运输。这一基础性研究的结果对太阳能电池设计和光电子器件具有重要意义。该项目还促进了培训平台的开发，为学生应对社会挑战和复杂的科学问题做好准备。为了实现这些目标，Olivier团队开发了一个科学发现计划：“创造和组装：自然如何建造”东西“”。该项目旨在激发年轻一代对科学技术的好奇心，创造一种促进批判性思维的环境，激励所有年龄段的学生追求科学事业，并使更成熟的受众敏感，使科学和教育能够极大地促进更可持续的未来。在美国国家科学基金会化学部高分子、超分子和纳米化学计划的支持下，该项目开发了一套新的工具来驾驭聚集的自由能场景，并创建能量受困的建筑，配备了在平衡状态下无法达到的结构功能性质。Olivier小组试图建立规则和原则来操纵π共轭构建块的电子结构，并形成非平衡状态(n掺杂)来调节超结构前体之间的非共价相互作用。从利用光谱学和电化学的溶液相研究中，这个项目试图了解重新配置的超结构如何促进激子离域和传输。此外，正在开发的策略是在平衡状态和处于非平衡状态(n掺杂)时“锁定”超分子结构。以这种方式创建的定义明确的纳米级物体揭示了对电子扰动非平衡状态所强制的电子性质的新理解。规则和原则被阐明，以使在固体/液体界面，形成层次化的纳米结构派生自能量困超结构。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为值得支持，通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

The research group of Jean-Hubert Olivier at The University of Miami seeks to develop new strategies to manipulate the interactions of organic molecules and polymers in nanoscale architectures (with dimensions of 1/1,000,000 meter). The overarching goal is to understand how one can precisely control assembly pathways to reconfigure the structure of organic materials and promote efficient energy transport. The results of this fundamental research have implications in solar cell design and optoelectronic devices. This project also nurtures the development of training platforms to prepare students to tackle social challenges and complex scientific problems. To achieve these goals, the Olivier group develops a Science Discovery Program: “Create and Assemble: How Nature Builds “Stuff””. The program seeks to ignite a curiosity for science and technology in younger generations, creates an environment that promotes critical thinking, motivates students across all age groups to pursue scientific careers, and sensitizes a more mature audience to the extent to which science and education can greatly contribute to a more sustainable future.With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program of the NSF Division of Chemistry, this project develops a new set of tools to navigate the aggregation free-energy landscape and create energetically trapped architectures equipped with structure-function properties unattainable at equilibrium. The Olivier groups seeks to establish rules and principles to manipulate the electronic structures of π-conjugated building blocks and form out-of-equilibrium states (n-doped) to tune the non-covalent interactions between superstructure precursors. From solution-phase studies that exploit spectroscopy and electrochemistry, this project seeks to understand how reconfigured superstructures promote exciton delocalization and transport. Furthermore, strategies are being developed to “lock-in” supramolecular architectures both at equilibrium, and when placed out-of-equilibrium (n-doped). Well-defined nanoscale objects created in this manner unearth a new understanding of the electronic properties enforced by electronically perturbed out-of-equilibrium states. Rules and principles are elucidated to enable, at the solid/liquid interface, the formation of hierarchical nanostructures derived from energetically trapped superstructures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.