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Chemistry Seminar

Thursday, January 23, 2025

11:00 AM-12:30 PM

Join us on Thursday, January 23rd at 11am for our first Chemistry Seminar of the Winter term! Guest lecturer, Dr. Stephanie Lee, will be visiting from NYU, and will present her talk "Manipulating Light with Nonconformist Crystals"
 
Abstract:
Crystal growth habits generally are dictated by the symmetry of the lattices on which atoms and molecules arrange – table salt forms three-dimensional cubes reflecting the cubic symmetry of alternating sodium and chlorine atoms while snowflakes present as six-pointed stars, mirroring the hexagonal symmetry of organized water molecules. Overcoming native interactions between molecules to manipulate crystal growth lies at the heart of a multitude of technologies, from pharmaceutics to microprocessors. My research group is developing strategies to control the size, shape, orientation and polymorphism of light-responsive crystals to optimize their performance in circuits, photodetectors and solar panels. Confining crystallization to the submicron length scale, for example, both can shift the relative thermodynamic stability of crystal polymorphs and suppress growth along all but one crystallographic direction. We have used this strategy to design nanowire arrays of light-harvesting perovskite crystals optimized for rapid exciton dissociation and charge transport to improve the efficiency of next-generation solar panels. We also are exploring symmetry breaking through spontaneous crystal twisting to form chiral crystalline films that differentially interact with left- or right-circularly polarized light depending on the twist direction. Twisting crystals of light-responsive molecules, including organic semiconductors and photoswitches, has opened avenues to create optically active materials out of centrosymmetric molecules for chiroptic and chiroptoelectronic applications.
 
Can't make it? Join us on Zoom!
Passcode: 243750

Contact Information

Dr. Alexandra Brumberg
ar4245@drexel.edu

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Location

Drexel University
Disque Hall 109
OR
Zoom

Audience

  • Undergraduate Students
  • Graduate Students
  • Faculty
  • Staff