Mid-Career Researcher Award Talk

Self-Assembly of Functional Nanoscale Materials

Hongyou Fan, Sandia National Laboratories and The University of New Mexico

“for outstanding contributions in nanoparticle self-assembly of functional nanomaterials and for leadership within the materials community"

Self-assembly techniques are one of the powerful and efficient methods to the synthesis of nanostructured materials. Using these techniques and their combination with top-down fabrication processes, materials with hierarchical feature can be produced with form and function in multiple length scales. We synthesize multifunctional nanoparticles through surfactant-assisted noncovalent interactions using molecular and nanoparticle building blocks. Self-assembly of these nano-building blocks results in functional materials that exhibit well-defined 1–3D morphologies and hierarchical architectures for a wide range of applications. Through pressure-directed assembly, an external pressure has been utilized to engineer nanoparticle assembly to induce structural transformation of complex structures from the nano-building blocks in both mesostructures and atomic crystal structures. By manipulating nanoparticle coupling through external pressure, a reversible change in their assemblies and properties can be achieved and demonstrated. In addition, over a certain threshold, the external pressure will force these nanoparticles into contact, thereby allowing the formation and consolidation of new 1–3D nanostructures.  Through self-assembly, materials engineering and synthesis become remarkably flexible with morphology or architecture readily tuned to produce desirable properties for practical application.

Notice: Hongyou Fan describes in his presentation objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

About Hongyou Fan

Hongyou Fan is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and is a National Laboratory Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at The University of New Mexico. He received a BS degree in chemistry from Jilin University in 1990, an MS degree in polymer science from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1995, and a PhD degree in chemical engineering from The University of New Mexico in 2000. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories before working there full-time. His research focuses on functional nanomaterials synthesis, assembly and integration for nanoelectronic and nanophotonic applications. Fan is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society (MRS). Prior to the MRS Mid-Career Researcher Award, he received the MRS Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship Award in Nanoscience, four R&D 100 Awards for the development of technically significant products, two Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer–Outstanding Technology Development Awards, The University of New Mexico Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, and the Asian American Engineer of the Year Award.