Sara Skrabalak, PhD
Indiana University
Biography:
Dr. Sara Skrabalak is the James H. Rudy Professor and Robert & Marjorie Mann Chair in the Chemistry Department at Indiana University - Bloomington. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including the 2014 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, and serves as the Director of the NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design, which is sponsored by the prestigious Centers for Chemical Innovation Program. In 2020 Professor Skrabalak assumed the roles of Editor in Chief for both Chemistry of Materials and ACS Materials Letters. Her research group focuses on nanomaterial synthesis and design for applications in catalysis, solar energy use, secured electronics, chemical sensing, and more.
Abstract:
Metal nanoparticles are often described and designed using idealized structural models, despite the reality that even highly uniform nanocrystal samples contain substantial variation both between particles and within individual particles themselves in size, shape, composition, defects, and local environments. Much like listening to a choir, ensemble measurements can capture the overall performance while obscuring the individual voices that ultimately shape it. Because nanoparticle properties are highly sensitive to these structural features, heterogeneity plays an important role in applications ranging from catalysis and energy conversion to sensing and optical materials. At the same time, this heterogeneity complicates structure–property correlations derived from ensemble measurements while also creating opportunities to discover previously hidden structures and behaviors. This presentation will discuss recent efforts from the NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design (CSENND) to develop high-throughput approaches for studying nanomaterials at the level of individual particles. I will highlight efforts to bridge synthesis, measurement, and characterization of metal nanocrystals through new high-throughput electrochemical and optical approaches that enable direct observation of nanocrystal growth pathways and the emergence of particle-to-particle heterogeneity. Together, these studies demonstrate how single-entity measurements can reveal relationships between structure and function that are hidden in ensemble averages and point toward a broader framework in which heterogeneity is quantitatively mapped and ultimately leveraged in the design of functional nanomaterials.
Dr. Sara Skrabalak is the James H. Rudy Professor and Robert & Marjorie Mann Chair in the Chemistry Department at Indiana University - Bloomington. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including the 2014 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, and serves as the Director of the NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design, which is sponsored by the prestigious Centers for Chemical Innovation Program. In 2020 Professor Skrabalak assumed the roles of Editor in Chief for both Chemistry of Materials and ACS Materials Letters. Her research group focuses on nanomaterial synthesis and design for applications in catalysis, solar energy use, secured electronics, chemical sensing, and more.
Abstract:
Metal nanoparticles are often described and designed using idealized structural models, despite the reality that even highly uniform nanocrystal samples contain substantial variation both between particles and within individual particles themselves in size, shape, composition, defects, and local environments. Much like listening to a choir, ensemble measurements can capture the overall performance while obscuring the individual voices that ultimately shape it. Because nanoparticle properties are highly sensitive to these structural features, heterogeneity plays an important role in applications ranging from catalysis and energy conversion to sensing and optical materials. At the same time, this heterogeneity complicates structure–property correlations derived from ensemble measurements while also creating opportunities to discover previously hidden structures and behaviors. This presentation will discuss recent efforts from the NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design (CSENND) to develop high-throughput approaches for studying nanomaterials at the level of individual particles. I will highlight efforts to bridge synthesis, measurement, and characterization of metal nanocrystals through new high-throughput electrochemical and optical approaches that enable direct observation of nanocrystal growth pathways and the emergence of particle-to-particle heterogeneity. Together, these studies demonstrate how single-entity measurements can reveal relationships between structure and function that are hidden in ensemble averages and point toward a broader framework in which heterogeneity is quantitatively mapped and ultimately leveraged in the design of functional nanomaterials.
