Bio: Dr Asaph Widmer-Cooper is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, a Chief Investigator of the ARC 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 the formation and properties of nanomaterials. This includes work on colloidal interactions and assembly, the structure and dynamics of complex fluids, crystal nucleation and growth, and the design of new materials for harnessing solar energy.
Abstract: 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 new 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, will require better control over the spontaneous, bottom-up organisation of atoms, molecules and nanoparticles into ordered structures at near-ambient conditions.
In my presentation, I will discuss how we are addressing this problem, in collaboration with experimental partners, via the use of theoretical modelling and computer simulations. This will include discussion of how nanoparticles interact with each other in solution [1-4], how they can be driven to assemble into optically anisotropic materials [5-6], and of how the microstructure of printable perovskite semiconductors depends on their interaction with light [7].
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- Zhang, H. et al. Optical Mater. 2022, 10, 2200179
- Mao, W. et al. Mater. 2021, 20, 55
