Soft materials are inherently fluxional, with morphologies and behaviors that are dictated by their solvation state. Thus, many organic systems cannot be reliably imaged by static dry state or cryogenic-transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This motivated us to pursue liquid cell (LC) TEM method development to study our own materials and...
Uranium is a unique, multifaceted element that possesses rich chemistry and promise for challenging reactions. Pressing demands within nuclear stockpile stewardship and the nuclear energy sector call for development of this relatively understudied element. Uranium metal–organic frameworks (U-MOFs), a class of nanoscale hybrid materials, harness the exceptional attributes of uranium...
Amyloid beta oligomers (AβOs) are a key instigator of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The work presented in this thesis includes three disease-modifying approaches to disrupt pathological AβO-related mechanisms in AD: (1) inhibiting AβO buildup, (2) blocking AβO-induced tau phosphorylation, and (3) neutralizing AβOs. These three approaches were tested in...
A fundamental materials science question is “why and how will this material form?” The experimental,computation, and time resources necessary to answer this question consume significant resources due to the
predominantly trial-and-error based approaches common in materials research. This dissertation reintroduces
a number of fundamental thermodynamics-based tools for the study of...
DNA is extremely versatile and powerful, both as a construct in biological applications and as a ligand in materials design due to the fact that its recognition properties can be programmed through sequence and length. Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), nanoparticles surrounded by a dense shell of DNA or RNA, are...
Wireless power strategies are critical to system level implementation of bio-integrated devices. To achieve mechanically robust, manufacturable systems, batteries are often integrated as an on-board power source to support sensing, wireless communication and signal conditioning. Unfortunately, most sources of battery power use hazardous and environmentally harmful materials, which frustrate incorporation...
Understanding the photophysical processes of organic materials is important for utilizing them as functional photonic materials. Typical photophysical processes include intersystem crossing, charge transfer (CT), symmetry-breaking charge separation (SB-CS), singlet fission (SF), etc. There are serval factors that can lead to different photophysical processes, such as the molecular energy levels,...
Industrial processes heavily rely on catalysts to control product selectivity and lower energy barriers required for chemical transformations. Catalysts are most commonly solid heterogeneous catalysts that facilitate separations from reaction mixtures and enhance recyclability. Heterogeneous catalysts used in industrial processes exhibit efficacious results, but in certain instances drawing structure-function relationships...
This thesis presents results on photophysics and spin dynamics of photoactive organic molecules that possess one unpaired electron spin in the ground state and two or three unpaired spins upon photoexcitation. The excited state dynamics of the systems were studied using transient optical absorption spectroscopies and non-Boltzmann population on the...
Understanding the mechanisms associated with chemical catalysis is vital for not only the rational improvement of their capabilities, but also for the advancement of the fundamental knowledge affiliated with the systems in question. These new insights can help predict new reactivities towards more challenging substrates which will allow for easier...