About the Seminar:
This presentation will have two parts. In part 1, I will describe our recent efforts in using multi-modal optical imaging to study single particulate photoanodes for water oxidation reactions and our discovery of 2D inter-facet junction effects on 3D shaped semiconductor particles. In part 2, I will describe our recent work in developing methods to monitor in real time the growth of single synthetic polymers down to single-monomer resolution and determine the microscopic sequences of single copolymer chains.
Key references:
- Mao, P. Chen* “Inter-facet junction effects on particulate photoelectrodes,” Nature Mater. 2022, 21, 331-337.
- Liu,† K. Kubo,† E. Wang,† K.-S. Han, F. Yang, G. Chen, F. A. Escobedo,* G. W. Coates,* P. Chen* “Single polymer growth dynamics,” Science 2017, 358, 352-355.
- Ye,† X. Sun,† X. Mao,† F. Alfonso, S. Baral, C. Liu, G. Coates, P. Chen* “Optical sequencing of single synthetic polymers,” Nature Chem. 2023, DOI: 10.1038/s41557-023-01363-2.
About the Speaker:
Peng Chen has been the Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University since 2013. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China in 1997. After a year at University of California, San Diego with Prof. Yitzhak Tor learning organic synthesis, he moved to Stanford University and did his Ph.D. with Prof. Edward Solomon in bioinorganic/physical inorganic chemistry. In January 2004, he joined Prof. Sunney Xie’s group at Harvard University for postdoctoral research in single-molecule biophysics. He started his faculty appointment at Cornell University in July 2005. During his independent career, his research group pioneered the study of single-nanoparticle catalysis, electrocatalysis, and photoelectrocatalysis; of living polymerizations by single molecular catalysts; and of biological inorganic systems in vitro and in living cells; using single-molecule/particle imaging and manipulation methods. His current research interests are on heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis, metal homeostasis machineries in vitro and in living cells, as well as energy conversion processes in bacteria.
He has received Dreyfus New Faculty Award, NSF Career Award, Sloan Fellowship, Paul Saltman Award, Coblentz Award, ACS Early-Career Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry, Excellence in Catalysis Award from the Catalysis Society of Metro NY, Bau Family Award in Inorganic Chemistry, Chemical Pioneer Award, etc., and was elected a fellow of AAAS. He has given many named lectures, including Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecture at Stanford University and Brian Bent Lecture at Columbia University, as well as many plenary and keynote lectures at international conferences. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of many journals. Currently he is an Associate Editor for the ACS journal Chemical & Biomedical Imaging. He has also served on many US and international grant review panels and was a standing member and later chairperson of the NIH Enabling Bioanalytical and Imaging Technologies (EBIT) Study Section from 2017-2023.
