Prof Chad Mirkin
Professor Chad Mirkin
Northwestern University
Professor Chad Mirkin joins us to deliver his RSC de Gennes Prize Lecture.
16:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 30 August 2023
IMC 0.02
This event is for all Warwick students and staff and will be followed by a drinks reception.
Registration required.Link opens in a new window
Professor Mirkin won the RSC 2021 Materials Chemistry Division open award: de Gennes PrizeLink opens in a new window for contributions to supramolecular chemistry and nanoscience, in particular the invention and development of methods for nanolithography, high-area rapid printing, and photocontrol in nanoparticle synthesis.
"Exploring the Matterverse with Nanomaterial Megalibraries"
Abstract
The evolution of materials has progressed over time from simple stone used by early man to the complex materials we rely on today. The use of new and advanced materials has revolutionized electronics, medicine, energy, and catalysis; however, the traditional approach of synthesizing and characterizing new materials is a slow and time-consuming process. To tackle this challenge, we have developed a nanoscale scanning probe lithography approach that, through the deposition of polymeric nanoreactors and thermal annealing, enables the preparation of “megalibraries” of nanomaterials with distinct chemistries. This approach has allowed the rapid synthesis and screening positionally encoded nanomaterials with many different elements, phases, and interfaces and offers exciting possibilities for creating new materials with desired properties. For instance, this approach enables the identification of new materials and catalysts for important chemical transformations and polyelemental particle generation can have significant implications for various fields, including energy and medicine. It offers a new understanding of how materials behave and how they can be engineered to create new and improved materials. However, in materials discovery efforts, synthetic capabilities far outpace the ability to extract meaningful data from them. To bridge this gap, we present a machine learning–driven, closed-loop experimental process to guide the synthesis of polyelemental nanomaterials with targeted structural properties. Together, this approach lays the foundation for creating an inflection point in the pace at which we both explore the breadth and discover the capabilities of the” matterverse”
Northwestern University
Department of Chemistry and International Institute for Nanotechnology
2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL USA 60208
Email: chadnano@northwestern.edu
Biography
Professor Chad A Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, George B Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, and a professor of chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and medicine at Northwestern University. He is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes: Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) and related cantilever-free nanopatterning and materials discovery methodologies; on-wire lithography (OWL) and co-axial Lithography (COAL); and contributions to supramolecular chemistry, nanoparticle synthesis, and high-area rapid 3D printing (HARP).
Professor Mirkin received his BS degree from Dickinson College (1986) and PhD from Penn State University (1989). He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT prior to becoming a professor at Northwestern in 1991. He has authored over 800 papers and over 1,200 patent applications worldwide (over 360 issued) and founded eight companies. He has been recognized with over 230 awards, including the Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine, SCI Perkin Medal, Wilhelm Exner Medal, RUSNANOPRIZE, Dan David Prize, and AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Prize. He served for eight years on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology, and he is one of very few scientists to be elected to all three US National Academies. As well as having served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of over 30 scholarly journals, he is the founding editor of the journal Small, an Associate Editor of JACS, and a PNAS Editorial Board Member. He has given over 860 invited lectures and educated over 290 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, of whom over 115 are now faculty members at top institutions around the world.