The Art Institute of Chicago:Science of Art Conservation

Generating, Probing and Manipulating Excitons in Carbon-based Nanomaterials        Density gradient ultracentrifugation leads to isolation of monodisperse graphene flakes      

Background: The JHU MRSEC conducts extensive K-12 educational outreach programs aimed at promoting interest in and awareness of the importance of modern materials research. High school students from the greater Baltimore area receive four-week internships each July to conduct research in the laboratories of the JHU MRSEC. The students are mentored by Center faculty, and also work closely

Kagan and Murray fabricated the first electronic circuits from nanometer scale semiconductor particles known as quantum dots. These quantum dots are synthesized in solution and tailored in the shape of cubes so when they are assembled into solids, they fill space. The nanoscale cubes allow for high performance thin film electronics. The chemistry developed further allowed these circuits to be realized on plastics for flexible electronic applications.

Center researchers are collaborating with spin-off Displaytech to develop FLC materials for application in picoprojectors. The high quality time sequential color and high brightness enabled by FLC switching speed makes FLC-on-silicon an excellent display technology for picoprojectors, currently being marketed by 3M.

LCMRC researchers have created a new family of electrolytes that promise to revolutionalize Lithium ion battery technology. Electrolytes are the electrically conducting media in batteries. Good ones carry high current density without chemical degradation and maintain their desirable characteristics over many charging and discharging cycles.

When an object, such as a colloidal particle, is put into a liquid crystal, it alters the otherwise uniform orientation of the molecules, creating a field of orientational disturbance around itself. This field acts on the object to align it with particular orientation relative to the average liquid crystal direction, indicated by the arrows in the image.

As part of a series of studies on the green chemistry of poly(l-lactides), we have performed a theoretical study of the mechanism of ring-opening polymerization.