Shining the brightest light on functional nanomaterials

纳米材料如纳米颗粒和纳米团簇是当前纳米技术中最广泛使用的构建块。提高对纳米材料结构-性能关系的理解对于推进纳米技术至关重要。这项拟议的研究计划的重点是使用强大的同步辐射（“最亮”的光）为基础的X射线光谱技术，以揭示一些技术上重要的纳米材料的结构-性能关系。将研究三类纳米系统，包括（i）催化活性纳米颗粒，（ii）生物启发的纳米结构，（iii）成分精确的金和银纳米簇。通过使用我们最近建立的同步辐射光谱技术，结合本提案中概述的常规技术，预计将显著提高对上述三类纳米系统的结构-性质关系的理解，这将对物理化学和材料科学的基础研究做出重要贡献。拟议的研究还将改善纳米催化剂和生物装置的开发，从而加速加拿大纳米技术的进步。

Nanomaterials such as nanoparticles and nanoclusters are the most widely used building blocks in current nanotechnology. Improved understanding of the structure-property relationships of nanomaterials is crucial for advancing nanotechnology. This proposed research program focuses on the use of powerful synchrotron radiation (the “brightest” light) based X-ray spectroscopy techniques to uncover the structure-property relationships of some technologically important nanomaterials. Three classes of nano-systems will be studied, including (i) catalytically active nanoparticles, (ii) bio-inspired nanostructures (iii) composition-precise gold and silver nanoclusters. By using the synchrotron spectroscopy techniques that we recently established in conjunction with conventional techniques outlined in this proposal, it is anticipated that significantly improved understanding of the structure-property relationships of the above three classes of nano-systems will be resulted, which will make important contributions to the fundamental research in physical chemistry and materials science. The proposed research will also improve the development of nanometer-sized catalysts and biological devices, thus accelerating the advancement of nanotechnology in Canada.