Directed Multi-component, Hierarchical Assemblies Toward Functional Soft Materials
2016-05-23 13:15 - 14:15 | MXF 1 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MXF%201
Prof. Ting Xu, Department of Materials Science and Engineering - Department of Chemistry - University of California Berkeley
The key to future technology is the design and fabrication of functional materials having structures ordered down to the molecular level. With the rapid developments in material chemistry and polymer science, many molecular building blocks can be readily synthesized. However, to generate functional materials that can be used to address challenges facing our society, we must develop approaches to organize them into macroscopic materials in a controlled manner, while maintaining structural control from the atomic level to macroscopic distances. These require us to select the right building blocks, understand the principles underpinning the self-assembly, and use these principles to direct the assemblies at various length scales to obtain targeted functional materials. More importantly, we need to develop a versatile methodology to generate new functional materials simply by substituting building blocks, instead of re-building them from scratch. However, the challenges to achieve hierarchical structural control in a multi-component system rest in the high entropy and the complex interactions involved. Inspired by nature, my research aims to use secondary interactions and the entropy of the polymer chain in conjunction with spatial confinement to achieve hierarchical assemblies in multiple component polymeric materials. I am going to discuss some of on-going research efforts focus on building blocks including polymers, nanoparticles, small molecules, supramolecules, peptides and proteins to generate functional materials with interesting biological, optical and magnetic properties.
Reference:
1. “Structural diversity in binary superlattices self-assembled from polymer-grafted nanocrystals”, Nature Communications, 2015, doi:10.1038/ncomms10052.
2. “Rapid Fabrication of Hierarchically Structured Supramolecular Nanocomposite Thin Films in One Minute”, Nature Comm., 2014, 5, 4053.
3. H. Dong, N. Dube, J. Y. Shu, J. W. Seo, L. M. Mahakian, K. W. Ferrara, T. Xu*, Long Circulating 15 nm Micelles based on Amphiphilic 3-Helix Peptide-PEG Conjugates, ACS Nano, 2012, 6, 5320.
Bio: Prof. Ting Xu received her Ph.D from the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2004. She did her postdoctoral training jointly between the University of Pennsylvania and the Cold Neutron for Biology and Technology (CNBT) team at National Institute of Science and Technology from 2004-2006. She jointed University of California, Berkeley in both the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering and Department of Chemistry in January 2007. She was promoted to Associated professor with tenure in July 2012.
Her research interests are to design and fabricate functional materials using polymers, organic molecules, nanoparticles, proteins and peptides via “bottom-up” approaches. Researches in Xu's group take advantage of the recent developments in protein science, polymer science and nanoparticles synthesis and manipulation; and use natural building blocks such as peptides and proteins in concert with the self-assembly of polymer, conjugated molecule and nanoparticles as platforms to generate nanostructured functional materials. Her research group focuses on a fundamental understanding of multiple length self-assemblies in multi-component systems and aims to generate hierarchically structured nanomaterials with built-in biological, electrical and magnetic functionalities.
Prof. Xu has over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, 5 book chapters and several patents. She is the recipient of several awards including 2007 DuPont Science and Technology Grant; 2008 3M Nontenured Faculty Award; 2008 DuPont Young Professor Award; 2009 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award; 2010 Li Ka Shing Woman Research Award; 2010 NASA Patent Award; 2011 Camille-Dreyfus Scholar-Teacher Award; and 2011 ACS Arthur K. Doolittle Award. She was named as one of “Brilliant 10” by Popular Science Magazine in 2009.
