Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series Presents Rongchao Jin from Carnegie Mellon University

“Toward Atomic Precision in Nanoscience”

Recent research in nanoscience has advanced toward controlling nanoparticles with atomic precision. In this talk I will present progress in gold nanocluster research, including the synthesis with atomic precision and single-atom manipulation, structure determination by X-ray crystallography, and new properties. Such perfect gold nanoparticles possess well-defined formulas of Au_n(SR)_m, where SR = thiolate ligand, n and m refer to the precise number of gold atoms and surface ligands, respectively.

With the success in atomically precise synthesis, significant progress has been achieved in determining the total structures of Au_n(SR)_m nanoclusters ranging from Au₁₈(SR)₁₄ to Au₂₄₆(SR)₈₀, and also in shape control. These ultrasmall nanoparticles exhibit intriguing electronic and optical properties with manifestations of strong quantum size effects, and also allow for quantum-state manipulation at the single-electron level. The attainment of atomically precise nanoparticles has offered exciting opportunities to pursue many fundamental issues that were previously difficult to tackle, such as isomerism and self-assembled monolayer structure on nano-facets. Such nanoclusters hold potential in catalysis, optics, energy conversion, and sensing applications.

Get to Know Rongchao

*In 2003, Rangchao and his wife Li Liu were featured in Northwestern Magazine in an article titled, ‘A Family Affair.’

Rongchao Jin received his B.S. in Chemical Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1995, his M.S. in Catalysis from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 2003 (advisor: Chad A. Mirkin). Then, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago (advisor: Norbert F. Scherer). He joined the chemistry faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in 2006, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and Full Professor in 2015.

His current research focuses on atomically precise metal nanoparticles. He has been on the list of Most Cited Faculty (Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thomson-Reuters) since 2014. He received several awards such as the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and recently the NSF Creativity Award.