Smart Optical Materials by Nanoscale Assembly

Bio: Prof. Yadong Yin received his B.S. (1996) and M.S. (1998) in Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China, and Ph.D. (2002) from the University of Washington, Seattle (with Prof. Younan Xia).  In 2003 he became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. A. Paul Alivisatos, and then a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2005. He joined the faculty at the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside as an Assistant Professor in 2006, and then he was promoted to Full Professor in 2014.  His recent recognitions include Cottrell Scholar Award (2009), DuPont Young Professor Grant (2010), 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant (2010), NSF CAREER award (2010), and NML Researcher Award (2016).  He is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, and also serves on the editorial board for NPG Asia Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, SCIENCE CHINA Materials, ChemNanoMat, Research, and Chem. Rev.

Abstract: Smart materials hold great promises for many intrigue applications as they exhibit chemical and physical responses to the applied external stimuli. This presentation will focus on nanostructured materials with responsive optical properties that can find applications in printing, sensing, signage, security documents, and displays.  We will discuss our recent progress on the development of chemical and assembly approaches for the fabrication of various nanostructured materials whose optical properties can be dynamically tuned by controlling the spatial arrangement of the nanoscale building blocks.  Many novel optical materials could be developed by manipulating the diffraction, refraction, birefringence, and electronic resonances through controlling the interaction between light and the nanostructures.