March 28, 2018
4th Annual VINSE Student Selected Seminar Series
George Whitesides
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor
Harvard University
“Quantum Tunneling in Organic Matter and Molecular Electronics”
4:10 PM, 134 Featheringill Hall
Refreshments served at 3:45
Abstract. This talk will describe the development and use of a junction (the “EGaIn” junction) based on insulating self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) sandwiched between two metal electrodes—one usually gold or silver, and the other a low-melting liquid eutectic alloy of gallium and indium—and the use of these systems to study mechanisms of electron transfer by tunneling across them. This talk characterizes this junction as a tool that is exceptionally useful in physical-organic studies of charge (hole) transport by tunneling through organic molecules, and describes the emerging picture of tunneling of charge through organic insulators that emerges from these studies.
Bio. George M. Whitesides received his AB degree from Harvard University in 1960, and his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 1964 (with J.D Roberts). He began his independent career at M.I.T., and is now the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard Univestiy. His current research interests include physical and organic chemistry, materials science, biophysics, water, self-assembly, complexity and simplicity, origin of life, dissipative systems, affordable diagnostics, and soft robotics.