Luis Echegoyen

University of Texas at El Paso
USA

Luis Echegoyen is the Robert A. Welch Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso since August, 2010. He was the Director of the Chemistry Division at the National Science Foundation from August, 2006 until August, 2010 where he was instrumental in establishing new funding programs and research centers. He was simultaneously a Professor of Chemistry at Clemson University in South Carolina, where he maintained a very active research program with interests in fullerene electrochemistry, monolayer films, supramolecular chemistry, and spectroscopy; endohedral fullerene chemistry and electrochemistry; and carbon nanoonions, synthesis, derivatization and fractionation. He served as Chair for the Department of Chemistry at Clemson from 2002 until his NSF appointment. Luis has published around 350 research articles and 44 book chapters. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003 and has been the recipient of many awards, including the 1996 Florida ACS Award, the 1997 University of Miami Provost Award for Excellence in Research, the 2007 Herty Medal Award from the ACS Georgia Section, the 2007 Clemson University Presidential Award for Excellence in Research, and the 2007 University of Puerto Rico Distinguished Alumnus Award. He was also selected as an ACS Fellow in 2011 and was the first recipient of the ACS Award for Recognizing Underrepresented Minorities in Chemistry for Excellence in Research & Development, also in 2011. Luis is a coveted speaker who has to his record over 370 scientific invited lectures and presentations.

Luis was born in Habana, Cuba in 1951. His family moved to Puerto Rico in 1960, where he spent his formative years. He received a BS in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a research scientist at Union Carbide Corporation in Bound Brook, New Jersey. Realizing that his vocation was in academic research and teaching, he returned as Assistant Professor to the University of Puerto Rico in 1977. Luis was invited to serve as Program Officer in the Chemical Dynamics Program at NSF in 1981, and he held a simultaneous Adjunct Associate Professor position at the University of Maryland, College Park during his work at the NSF. He moved to the University of Miami in 1982, where he served as Associate Professor and Professor for 18 years. While at Miami, he took two very rewarding sabbatical leaves: one at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France in 1990, where he collaborated with Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, and a second one at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland in 1997, where he worked with Professor Francois Diederich. Luis maintains active research collaborations with researchers in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland and all across the US. Luis has been continuously funded since the start of his academic career, and is proud to have directed the research of a very large number of undergraduate and graduate students in Puerto Rico, Miami, Clemson and Texas, all of whom have gone on to successful academic, professional, and industrial careers.

Fullerenes as Acceptors in OPV Devices: Regioselective Bis-Additions to Empty and Endohedral Clusterfullerenes

Fullerene derivatives have evolved as some of the most efficient electron acceptor compounds used in organic solar cells, mainly in Bulk Heterojunction (BHJ) devices. To date, the most efficient compounds are multiply functionalized, typically with two or more addends, so controlling the regioisomeric distribution and purity of these systems has become an important challenge. Several strategies have been utilized to control the regiochemistry of multiple additions on fullerene cages, most notable being the tether-directed-remote functionalization method, originally introduced by Diederich et al. In this method, two reactive centers, separated by a rationally designed tether (preferably rigid and with the appropriate length to guide the bis-addition regioselectively) are attached to the fullerene cages, see structures above. This strategy works well with C60 and to some degree with C70, but surprisingly it fails completely when applied to endohedral clusterfullerenes, such as Sc3N@C80. In these cases only one reactive center attaches to the fullerene while the other remains unattached. These observations are very interesting because independent bis-adducts (non-tethered) are easily formed without difficulty, see structure at the right. More interestingly, the number of bis-adduct regioisomers that form is very limited, indicating that the cluster inside must play an important role in directing the exohedral functionalizations. These results will be presented and discussed in detail, including theoretical and experimental observations.

Zhong Lin Wang

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
USA

Dr. Zhong Lin (ZL) Wang received his PhD from Arizona State University in 1987. He now is the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering and Regents' Professor at Georgia Tech. Dr. Wang has made original and innovative contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization and understanding of fundamental physical properties of oxide nanobelts and nanowires, as well as applications of nanowires in energy sciences, electronics, optoelectronics and biological science. His discovery and breakthroughs in developing nanogenerators establish the principle and technological road map for harvesting mechanical energy from environment and biological systems for powering a personal electronics. His research on self-powered nanosystems has inspired the worldwide effort in academia and industry for studying energy for micro-nano-systems, which is now a distinct disciplinary in energy research and future sensor networks. He coined and pioneered the field of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics by introducing piezoelectric potential gated charge transport process in fabricating new electronic and optoelectronic devices. This breakthrough by redesign CMOS transistor has important applications in smart MEMS/NEMS, nanorobotics, human-electronics interface and sensors. Dr. Wang’s publications have been cited for over 79,000 times. The H-index of his citations is 136. Dr. Wang was elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, member of European Academy of Sciences in 2002, fellow of American Physical Society in 2005, fellow of AAAS in 2006, fellow of Materials Research Society in 2008, fellow of Microscopy Society of America in 2010, and fellow of the World Innovation Foundation in 2002. He received 2014 World Technology Prize in Materials; 2014 the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from America Physical Society, 2013 ACS Nano Lectureship award, 2012 Edward Orton Memorial Lecture Award and 2009 Purdy Award from American Ceramic Society, 2011 MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society, 1999 Burton Medal from Microscopy Society of America. Details can be found at: http://www.nanoscience.gatech.edu

Nanogenerators as new energy technology and piezotronics for smart systems

Developing wireless nanodevices and nanosystems is of critical importance for sensing, medical science, environmental/infrastructure monitoring, defense technology and even personal electronics. It is highly desirable for wireless devices to be self-powered without using battery. Nanogenerators (NGs) have been developed based on piezoelectric, trioboelectric and pyroelectric effects, aiming at building self-sufficient power sources for mico/nano-systems. The output of the nanogenerators now is high enough to drive a wireless sensor system and charge a battery for a cell phone, and they are becoming a vital technology for sustainable, independent and maintenance free operation of micro/nano-systems and mobile/portable electronics. An energy conversion efficiency of 55% and an output power density of 1200 W/m2 have been demonstrated. This technology is now not only capable of driving portable electronics, but also has the potential for harvesting wind and ocean wave energy for large-scale power application. This talk will focus on the updated progress in NGs.

For Wurtzite and zinc blend structures that have non-central symmetry, such as ZnO, GaN and InN, a piezoelectric potential (piezopotential) is created in the crystal by applying a strain. Such piezopotential can serve as a “gate� voltage that can effectively tune/control the charge transport across an interface/junction; electronics fabricated based on such a mechanism is coined as piezotronics, with applications in force/pressure triggered/controlled electronic devices, sensors, logic units and memory. By using the piezotronic effect, we show that the optoelectronc devices fabricated using wurtzite materials can have superior performance as solar cell, photon detector and light emitting diode. Piezotronics is likely to serve as a “mechanosensation� for directly interfacing biomechanical action with silicon based technology and active flexible electronics. This lecture will focus on the updated progress in the field and its expansion to 2D materials.

Luigi Colombo

Texas Instruments Incorporated
USA

Luigi Colombo is a TI Fellow in the Analog Technology Development group at Texas Instruments and is responsible for research and development of new materials and devices for analog and logic applications. He joined TI in 1981 to work on infrared detector materials where among other materials he performed research on II-VI compounds, and developed a HgCdZnTe liquid phase epitaxy process and put in production in 1991; this process is still in production today. Lugi has also developed high-k capacitor MIM structures for DRAMs, SiON/poly-Si and Hf-based high-k gate/metal transistor gate stacks for the 45 nm node. He is currently responsible for the development of new materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, and their integration in new device flows as part of the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative. Luigi has also developed the first CVD graphene process on Cu in collaboration with UT Austin. He has authored and co-authored over 140 refereed papers, made over 160 invited and contributed presentations, has written 4 chapters in edited books, and holds over 114 US and international patents. He is on the Strategic Advisory Council of the European Graphene Flagship, the UC Berkeley Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science External Advisory Board, the SRC-NRI Technical Program Group, the SRC-STARnet Strategic Advisory Board. He is a member of the APS, IEEE, and MRS. He is also an IEEE Fellow, APS Fellow, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas.

2d Materials Growth: Prospects and Challenges

The isolation of graphene now almost a decade ago has given rise to the revitalization of two-dimensional materials (2DM). The 2DM materials under investigation, in addition to graphene, include hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), semiconducting, metallic, and superconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD). While h-BN is an excellent 2D insulator, TMD materials provide what neither graphene nor h-BN can, bandgap engineering that can be used to create new heterostructure devices that cannot be fabricated with h-BN and graphene. There is hope then to integrate these materials to create new devices for many applications ranging from inkjet printing, photonic applications, flexible electronics, and high performance electronics. However, before the engineering community can develop these products, basic material properties for each application requires careful materials selection so that the materials community can focus on the specific growth techniques to prepare the highest quality films. A number of deposition techniques have been used to prepare large area graphene, growth on SiC, precipitation of carbon from metals, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on Cu and Ge. TMDs present different opportunities and difficulties in the preparation of low defect density large area single crystals. Vapor transport, CVD, and molecular beam epitaxy are being used to produce these materials for initial studies of materials physics device fabrication. A number of devices structures are currently under evaluation to take advantage of the basic properties of these materials. Some of the devices are based on tunneling which can be used to lower the voltage and power dissipation of a logic gate. In this presentation we will review the state of the art in devices in graphene, h-BN, and a few TMD materials and their prospects for future electronic device applications.

Zenji Horita

Kyushu University
Japan

Developing High-Performance Structural And Functional Materials Using Severe Plastic Deformation Under High Pressure

It is now well known that processing through severe plastic deformation (SPD) is effective for grain refinement to the submicrometer and/or nanometer range in bulk forms of metallic materials [1]. When the SPD process is performed under high pressure as called high-pressure torsion (HPT) [2], its applicability is further promoted: (1) second phase particles in the metal matrix can be fragmented to a fine dispersion of nanosized particles; (2) dissolution of the second phase particles may even occur; (3) consolidation of powders at relatively low temperatures and thus alloying is attained through solid-state reaction; (4) fabrication of metal-matrix composites is feasible without successive sintering process; (5) nanostructure control is achieved through subsequent combination with annealing or aging. With such features, it is shown that mechanical properties are well enhanced by simultaneous strengthening due to grain refinement and precipitation. Functionality of materials such as hydrogen storage capability, electrical conductivity, superconductivity, photoluminescence is improved or created. In this presentation, a new SPD process under high pressure as called high-pressure sliding (HPS) [3] is introduced, which is applicable to a rectangular sheet sample or a rod sample and with which scaling-up can be feasible for practical application.

Teri W. Odom

Northwestern University
USA

Teri W. Odom is Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. She is an expert in designing structured nanoscale materials that exhibit extraordinary size and shape-dependent optical properties. Odom has pioneered a suite of multi-scale nanofabrication tools that has resulted in, for example, the discovery of a new type of “dark� surface plasmon in nanoparticle arrays and realization of the first plasmon nano-laser based on electromagnetic “hot spots.� She has also invented a class of biological nanoconstructs that are facilitating unique insight into nanoparticle-cell interactions, such as how nuclear deformations induced by drug-loaded agents may be correlated with cell death.

Odom has received numerous honors and awards, including being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC); a Blavatnik Young Scientist Finalist; the Carol Tyler Award from the International Precious Metals Institute; a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard University; the ACS Akron Section Award; an NIH Director's Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health; the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award; the National Fresenius Award from Phi Lambda Upsilon and the ACS; the Rohm and Haas New Faculty Award; an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship; a DuPont Young Investigator Grant; a National Science Foundation CAREER Award; the ExxonMobil Solid State Chemistry Faculty Fellowship; and a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. Odom was the first Chair of the Noble Metal Nanoparticles Gordon Research Conference, whose inaugural meeting was in 2010. In addition, Odom was an Associate Editor for RSC’s flagship journal Chemical Science (2009-2013) and is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of ACS Nano, Chemical Physics Letters, Materials Horizons, Annual Reviews of Physical Chemistry and Nano Letters. She currently serves as Executive Editor of the new journal ACS Photonics (2013 - ).

Enhanced Light-Matter Interactions in Nanoparticle Arrays

Metal nanostructures can concentrate optical fields into highly confined, nanoscale volumes that are of interest in a wide range of applications, from photonic circuits to nanoscale lithography to chemical and biological detection. This talk will describe new ways to design arrays of strongly coupled nanoparticles and plasmonic hetero-oligomers that can exhibit extraordinary properties such as plasmon lasing and enhanced gas sensing. First, we will describe a new type of nanocavity based on arrays of metal nanoparticles. These structures support lattice plasmon modes that can be amplified and that can result in room-temperature lasing that can be tuned in real time. Second, we will describe nanoparticle assemblies composed of more than one type of material. Hetero-oligomers composed of strong and weak plasmonic materials (Au-Pd dimers and trimers) showed unusual wavelength shifts when subjected to hydrogen gas that can be explained by detailed modeling that indicated near-field coupling was responsible for these amplified light-matter responses.