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Summary Sentence: Join us for our twice monthly lecture on various aspects of the nanotechnology research domain.
Full Summary: No summary paragraph submitted.
ZQ LinLearning from "Coffee Rings": Ordered Structures Crafted by Controlled Evaporative Self-Assembly and Flow-Enabled Self-Assembly
Professor Zhiqun Lin
School of Materials Science and Engineering
The Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract: Self-assembly of micro- and nano-scale materials to form well-ordered structures promises new opportunities for developing miniaturized electronic, optoelectronic, and magnetic devices. In this regard, several elegant methods based upon self-assembly have emerged, for example, self-directed self-assembly and electrostatic self-assembly. Dynamic self-assembly of nonvolatile solutes via irreversible solvent evaporation has been recognized as an extremely simple route to intriguing structures. However, these dissipative structures are often randomly organized. In this presentation, I will show two simple yet robust techniques based on very familiar “coffee ring” phenomena to produce a large variety of intriguing structures (e.g., concentric rings, fingers, spokes, squares, triangular contour lines, ellipses, etc.) consisting of polymers or nanocrystals (NCs) with unprecedented regularity by allowing a drop of polymer or NC solution to evaporate in curve-on-flat geometries and two-parallel-plate geometry, respectively. These techniques, which dispense with the need for lithography and external fields, are fast and cost-effective. As such, they represent powerful strategies for creating highly structured, multifunctional materials and devices.
Biography: Dr. Zhiqun Lin is a Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his BS degree in Chemistry from Xiamen University in 1995, MS degree in Macromolecular Science from Fudan University in 1998, and PhD degree in Polymer Science and Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2002. He was a postdoctoral associate at UIUC. He joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Iowa State University in 2004 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010. He moved to Georgia Tech in 2011. His research interests include polymer-based nanocomposites, block copolymers, polymer blends, conjugated polymers, quantum dots (rods, tetrapods and wires), functional nanocrystals (metallic, magnetic, semiconducting, ferroelectric, multiferroic, upconversion and thermoelectric) of different architectures (plain, core/shell, hollow and Janus), solar cells (organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells and dye sensitized solar cells), hierarchically structured and assembled materials, and surface and interfacial properties. He has published 165 peer reviewed journal articles, 7 book chapters, and 2 books. Currently, he serves as an Associate Editor for Journal of Materials Chemistry A, and an editorial advisory board member for Nanoscale. He is a recipient of the Frank J. Padden Jr. Award in Polymer Physics from American Physical Society, an NSF Career Award, a 3 M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, and an invited participant at the National Academy of Engineering’s 2010 US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. He became a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry in 2014. He was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellow in 2015. More information on his research can be found at http://nanofm.mse.gatech.edu/.
