Past Seminars

The weekly seminar series organized by CNT and the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute provides a forum for bringing national and international leaders in nanoscale science and technology to campus, and for graduate students enrolled in our Dual Ph.D. program in Nanotechnology to present their research.

All seminars are held on Tuesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 PM in Johnson Hall Room 102 (North end of building and across from MolE).

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Seminars

2013-03-05

Self-assembly at the solid surface: Models and mechanisms

Asst. Prof. Irina Paci, University of Victoria - Dept. of Chemistry
Speaker's Website
Asst. Prof. David J. Masiello, Dept. of Chemistry

In the bottom-up approach to nanotechnology, molecular-scale devices are constructed by designing their components to self-assemble and realize a desired structure or complex. In this context, the self-assembly process often occurs in the vicinity of a solid substrate. Theoretical investigations of surface self-assembly can be extremely useful counterparts to experimental studies, but can be challenging to pursue. One main issue is that while ultimately, quantum level information about the molecules, the surface and their interactions is essential to understand, the representative size of the system is more amenable to bulk simulations. This talk will describe some of our group's efforts to advance the theoretical understanding of molecular self-assembly and behaviour on solid surfaces. Our studies of chiral structure formation at adsorption and its relationship to molecular structure will be discussed in some detail. A project focused on the switching behavior of mixed diazobenzene/alkylthiol monolayers on gold will also be presented.