CAS: Designing Chemically Functionalized Polymers for Nanoscale Structures and Interfaces

在化学学部大分子、超分子和纳米化学项目的支持下，马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的Todd Emrick教授将致力于推进聚合物和可持续化学的基本方面，重点是发现聚合物和半导体颗粒的独特组合，以实现混合结构。目标是建立一个由研究生、本科生研究人员和高中实习生组成的多元化团队，他们共同努力揭示聚合物如何与电子活性表面相互作用，并协同增强混合结构的光学、电子和光活性。该项目的研究将反过来教育参与者在化学的重要领域，需要新的发现，以推动化学科学超越已知的今天。这个项目的直接意义是生产先进的设备，比如太阳能电池，当这个项目中合成的聚合物与半导体颗粒/表面结合使用时，效率会更高。重要的是，该项目将提供新的夏季研究机会，促进正在进入STEM教育形成阶段的不同参与者的包容。将研究与教育、多样性和性别平等目标无缝结合，将有助于我们的使命，即确保美国未来在科技领域的全球竞争力，推动电子和太阳能设备领域的发展，这些领域是清洁能源和先进技术的关键要素。此外，该项目将把跨领域的教育活动与学生接触工业互动结合起来，这将保持对项目前沿可持续技术当前需求和机会的认识。从技术角度来看，该提案将设计大分子/纳米级混合系统，设想利用聚合物基配体的新发现来促进与无机半导体结构的特定表面相互作用。这项工作将集中在合成新的、富含离子的、含电荷的聚合物上，这些聚合物将通过使用新型单体的控制聚合技术合成。从聚合物主链中产生的官能团被专门选择以促进聚合物-纳米级界面相互作用，包括动态和潜在可逆的非共价相互作用。总的来说，成功地生产含钙钛矿纳米晶体聚合物网络和定义良好的多层纳米级结构，对于提高太阳能产生所需的吸收和发射过程的效率，以及提高发射设备的亮度和可持续性（耐用性）是必不可少的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Todd Emrick at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will work to advance fundamental aspects of polymeric and sustainable chemistry, with focus on discovering unique combinations of polymers and semiconductor particles to achieve hybrid structures. The objective will be to build a diverse team of graduate students, undergraduate researchers, and high school interns, whose collective efforts uncover how polymers interact with electronically active surfaces and synergistically enhance the optical, electronic, and photoactive properties of the hybrid structure as a whole. The research in this project will in turn educate the participants in vital areas of chemistry where new discoveries are needed to advance the chemical sciences beyond what is known today. Direct implications of this project point towards producing advanced devices, such as solar cells, that are more efficient when the polymers synthesized in this project are used in conjunction with semiconductor particles/surfaces. Importantly, this project will enable new summer research opportunities that promote inclusion of diverse participants who are entering the formative stages of their STEM education. A seamless merger of the research with education, diversity, and gender equity objectives will contribute to our mission of ensuring that the future of U.S. global competitiveness in science and technology advances the areas of electronic and solar devices, which are key elements of clean energy and advanced technologies. Moreover, the project will couple cross-cutting educational activities with student exposure to industrial interactions, which will maintain awareness of current needs and opportunities of sustainable technologies at the forefront of the project. From a technical standpoint, this proposal will design macromolecular/nanoscale hybrid systems that are envisaged to exploit new discoveries of polymer-based ligands to promote specific surface interactions with inorganic semiconductor structures. The work will center on the synthesis of novel, ion-rich, charge-containing polymers, which will be synthesized by controlled polymerization techniques employing novel monomers. The functional groups emanating from the polymer backbone are selected specifically to promote polymer-nanoscale interfacial interactions, including non-covalent interactions that are dynamic and potentially reversible. Overall, successfully producing perovskite nanocrystal-containing polymer networks and well-defined multi-layered nanoscale structures is imperative for boosting the efficiency of absorption and emission processes needed for generating solar energy, and likewise for enhancing the brightness and sustainability (durability) of emissive devices.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.