Dr. Paul Mulvaney

The Inaugural Aldrich Lecture
Presented by:  Dr. Paul Mulvaney, ARC Laureate Professor, School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Abstract:
In this talk, Professor Mulvaney will provide an overview of some of his recent work on three aspects of the chemistry of gold nanocrystals. In the first part, we study chemical reactions on single nanoparticles. We show how electron transfer can be observed spectroscopically and how even processes such as hydrogen adsorption can be detected. We show that the interaction of the metal nanocrystal with the support matrix is crucial in determining reactivity. We will show a method called capillary force assembly for creating libraries of single catalyst particles.

In the second system, we study energy transfer from dye molecules to metal particles. We have used silica as a nanoscale spacer. We show that for small gold particles (15nm in size) the gold particle acts as a quencher at all separations. Full electrodynamic calculations agree well with the experiment and show that quenching obeys a d-4 distance dependence.

Finally, we describe NIPAM spacers as a temperature-tunable spacer. The use of polymer shells to control surface plasmon interactions is discussed and the possibility of light driven chemistry in plasmonic systems by local plasmonic heating. We demonstrate nanosecond based superlattice melting as a means to study the dynamics of colloidal crystal formation.

Please see the Dr. Paul Mulvaney flyer for more information.

All Notre Dame faculty, students, and staff are welcome to attend.

Hosted by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame (ND Energy).