About the Speaker:
Dr Asaph Widmer-Cooper is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, a Chief Investigator of the Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science, and a member of the University of Sydney Nano Institute. His research focuses on the application of computer simulations to understand how nanomaterials form and behave. This includes work on nanoparticle interactions and assembly, the structure and dynamics of complex fluids, crystal nucleation and growth, and the design of new materials for harnessing solar energy.
About the Seminar:
One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century will be our transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels to power the world. This will require better methods of generating and transforming energy, involving materials with clever design of light-matter interactions. Equally important is to make these materials via scalable, energy-efficient processes, so that new technologies can be deployed at scale with low embodied energy. This, in turn, requires exquisite control over the spontaneous, bottom-up organisation of atoms, molecules and nanoparticles into ordered structures near ambient conditions.
I will discuss how we are addressing this problem, in collaboration with experimental partners, via the use of theoretical models and computer simulations. This will include explanation of how surface ligands influence the colloidal stability, shape and optical properties of nanoparticles [1-4], how such particles can be assembled into ordered structures [5-6], and how the microstructure of printable ionic semiconductors depends on their interaction with light and heat [7,8]. A recurrent theme in this work is the crucial role of nanoscale strain in regulating materials properties, including chirality.
