Increasing industrialization and the resulting negative environmental impacts highlight the need to develop alternative renewable energy sources. The Sun is a massive source and organic solar cells are a growing field of study. As new materials are synthesized, the efficiencies of organic solar cells continue to grow, but without an...
This work combines the use of high-throughput mass spectrometry with peptide arrays for to monitor reactions on peptides. The Mrksich lab introduced a high-throughput, label-free, biochemical assay that relies on self-assembled monolayers on gold and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, termed SAMDI-MS. This dissertation introduces new applications of SAMDI-MS and...
One of the grand challenges in materials chemistry and nanochemistry is the development of functional materials through ordered, hierarchical structures using synthetic building blocks. Nature has done this through evolution of molecular components such as nucleic acids, saccharides, lipids, amino acids, and inorganic crystals. The precise spatial positioning of these...
The mammalian oocyte undergoes large fluctuations in zinc content as it matures from a prophase I arrested oocyte to a metaphase II egg and finally is fertilized to become a zygote. These changes in total zinc content are necessary for proper progression, as disruption to egg’s ability to acquire and...
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy has been demonstrated to be a powerful analytical tool. Its chemical specificity, rapidity, and portability make it an attractive technique for biosensing, but its application to this field has been limited by the fundamental distance dependence of the surface-enhancement effect. Many biological molecules of interest...
Hybrid Organic-inorganic halide perovskites are emerging semiconducting materials that have shown over 23% in power conversion efficiency (PCE) for solar cells. The most prominent materials, three-dimensional (3D) perovskites, have limited scope for structural engineering and exhibit instability when encounter with moisture and heat. Here, we focus on studying the structure-property...
Many transcription factors (TFs) regulate oncogenic processes and are therefore desirable targets for drug intervention. However, few TF inhibitors have been developed to date due to a lack of specificity and few TF binding pockets. The Meade Lab has overcome these challenges by using cobalt-based complexes that disrupt Cys2His2 zinc...
Oxidation is an important process in synthesizing a broad range of useful products such as polymers, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals. While H2O2 is a highly attractive oxidant for oxidative chemistry due to its high percentage of oxygen and environmentally friendly water byproduct, it is often used in excess due to...
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a gas-phase synthesis technique employed to manufacture thin films and metallic nanoparticles of various compositions and sizes, as well as individual, isolated species on various supports. An understanding of the dynamic surface chemistry that takes place during various ALD processes is vitally important for achieving...
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of highly modular materials with welldefined three-dimensional architectures, permanent porosity, and diverse chemical functionalities, which show promise for a wide range of applications, including gas storage and separation, drug delivery, chemical sensing, and catalysis. Nanoparticle forms of MOFs have similar properties but are dispersible...