Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/25/2019
9:35 am - 10:25 am
Location
New Engineering Building – Room 201
Categories No Categories
Brian A. Korgel, Ph.D.
Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Memorial Chair in Engineering
McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Texas at Austin
Nanomaterials Chemistry: Creating a Universe in a Grain of Sand
Abstract:
Chemical routes now exist to produce nanocrystal materials with a wide range of size, shape and composition. These materials have characteristic dimensions that are at least 1,000 times smaller than a human hair and exhibit a wide range of unique properties due to their size. For example, semiconductor nanocrystals or quantum dots exhibit size-tunable optical properties that are useful for light-emitting and light-absorbing applications. Semiconductor nanowires have attributes of polymers like mechanical flexibility combined with the useful electronic and optical properties of semiconductors in one material. This presentation will highlight some of our recent work in the synthesis of silicon, germanium and lead halide perovskite nanonanomaterials, their assembly into superlattices and films, and their use in applications ranging from biological cell imaging to paper solar cells to lithium ion batteries.
Bio:
Brian A. Korgel is the Ernest J. Cockrell, Jr. Chair in Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He directs the Industry/University Research Center (IUCRC) for Next Generation Photovoltaics and the Emerging Technologies area of the UT|Portugal program; he is the Education and Outreach Director for the NSF-funded Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials MRSEC at UT Austin; and he is an Associate Editor of Chemistry of Materials. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UCLA in 1997 and was a post-doctoral fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland, in the Department of Chemistry. He works at the intersection of nano & mesoscopic materials chemistry and complex fluids, tackling problems in energy storage, chemical transformations, energy harvesting and conversion, and medicine. He is also an artist, exploring collaboration, language and human-artificial intelligence/robot cohabitation. He has published more than 260 papers and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain, the Université Josef Fourier in France and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has co-founded two companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies, and received various honors including the Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and election into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
