Shining the brightest light on functional nanomaterials

纳米材料如纳米粒子和纳米团簇是当前纳米技术中应用最广泛的组成部分。提高对纳米材料结构-性能关系的理解对于纳米技术的发展至关重要。这项研究计划的重点是利用强大的同步辐射（“最亮”的光）为基础的x射线光谱学技术来揭示一些技术上重要的纳米材料的结构-性质关系。将研究三类纳米系统，包括(i)催化活性纳米粒子，（ii）仿生纳米结构，（iii）组成精确的金和银纳米团簇。通过使用我们最近建立的同步加速器光谱技术与本提案中概述的传统技术相结合，预计将大大提高对上述三类纳米系统的结构-性质关系的理解，这将为物理化学和材料科学的基础研究做出重要贡献。这项研究还将促进纳米级催化剂和生物器件的发展，从而加速加拿大纳米技术的发展。

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.