"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
The Analytical and Surface Chemistry (ASC) Program of the Division of Chemistry and the Solid State and Material chemistry (SSMC) Program of the Division of Material Research (DMR) supports the highly synergistic collaborative research project of Profs. Josef Michl, John Price and Chrles Rogers of the University of Colorado at Boulder. This project aims to use a combination of molecular self-assembly followed by adsorption of specially synthesized molecules to create a new state of matter, the ordered two-dimensional ferroelectric molecular dipole system. Two-dimensional lattices of interacting dipoles are predicted to display order states, including ferroelectric states for triangular arrays. Some of these phases further allow the existence of extraordinarily low barriers to synchronized rotation of the total dipole moment vector. The realization of such states would open up opportunities in e.g., rf signal processing, fast light modulation, and data storage. The synthetic challenge is to achieve two-dimensional structures where long-range dipolar interactions are of strength comparable to or exceeding the local steric interactions, thus allowing for the appearance of long range dipole-based order. Such ordered rotor materials are referred to as rotoelectrics. Prof. Michl and his students will synthesize rotor molecules, molecular crystal materials and completed rotor arrays. They will also perform molecular dynamics computations of rotor molecule and assembled system structure, to guide and advise the synthetic work. Prof. Rogers and his students will study rotor array symmetry, electro-optic properties, and array dynamics using surface-sensitive nonlinear optics and ultra-fast optical pump/probe techniques. Prof. Price and his students will study dipolar rotor arrays by low-frequency and radio frequency resonant dielectric spectroscopy. The associated groups will provide training in multidisciplinary nanotechnology to students from undergraduate through post-graduate levels. They will also provide summer internships to involve high school teachers in their research and develop web site materials and outreach presentations to K-12 students.
