► Research Focus. Our group is interested in establishing chemical and structural principles enabling the design of materials with tailored reactivity and luminescence response. We seek to achieve this goal by exploring novel and exotic chemical compositions and through a fundamental understanding of composition-structure and structure-luminescence relationships. This understanding lays the foundation for technology deployment in fields such as health care, sustainable energy conversion, microelectronics, and defense.
Our research bridges the areas of inorganic and solid-state chemistry (synthesis and reactivity), structural chemistry (crystallography and structure analysis), physical chemistry (spectroscopy and photophysics), and analytical chemistry (instrumentation, measurement, and sensor development).
► Research Topics.
- Synthesis and reactivity of mono- and bimetallic halogenated organic-inorganic hybrids.
- Discovery of novel metal-organic precursors to mixed-metal halides and mixed-halides.
- Solid-state chemistry and nanochemistry of lanthanides.
- Understanding the impact of crystal-chemistry on the photophysics of thermosensitive phosphors.
- Discovery of chemically and structurally tunable luminescent nanocrystals for biophotonic sensing.
- Development of oxide phosphors as optical temperature sensors for extreme environments.
- Instrumentation and method development for luminescent sensor testing.
► Materials Scope and Research Approach. Materials that are the focus of our studies include inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid solids in a variety of form factors such as single crystals, bulk polycrystalline solids, nanocrystals, and thin films. Among the synthesis routes used to prepare these materials are liquid-phase air-free synthesis (Schlenk-line based), high-temperature solid-state reaction (conventional and microwave), solvothermal synthesis, and spin coating. Once in hand, their chemical composition, morphology, structure, reactivity, and luminescence are probed using a plethora of analytical techniques including elemental analysis, NMR, TGA/DSC-MS, S/TEM, EDS elemental mapping, X-ray and neutron diffraction, X-ray and neutron pair distribution function, XANES/XAFS, UV-vis and diffuse reflectance spectroscopies, Raman spectroscopy, and spectrofluorometry. Our group makes extensive use of synchrotron and neutron sources at the Advanced Photon Source (Argonne National Laboratory), Advanced Light Source (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and the Spallation Neutron Source (Oak Ridge National Laboratory).
Funding. NSF DMR-1606917, DMR-2003118, Cottrell Scholar Award, Michigan Space Grant Consortium, and Wayne State University.
