Detail:

Abstract:
　　Inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) have the ability to self-organize into variety of extended and terminal structures and so do many molecular and nanoscale compounds given sufficient number of translational and rotational degrees of freedom. Analysis of experimental data for all NPs (metal, semiconductor, ceramic..) indicate a general trend of self-assembly under a much wider range of conditions and having much broader structural variability than “building blocks” from organic matter. Remarkably, internal organization of self-assembled structures spontaneously produced by NPs rival in complexity and functional sophistication those found in biology. Multiscale collective effects make NP-NP interactions no less fascinating than those of naturally occurring proteins. In this seminar I will address the following questions: (a) What are the differences and similarities of NP self-organization compared with similar phenomena involving organic and biological building blocks? (b) What are the forces and related theoretical assumptions essential for NP interactions? (c)Why does NP self-assembly matter for fundamental science and technology?
REFERENCES
1. Science, 2010, 330(6001), 188–189. 2. Science, 2010, 327, 1355.
3. Nature, 2013, 500, 59-64. 4. Nature Mater. 2015, 14, 66.
5. Science, 2015, DOI:10.1126/science.1242477. 6. Nature Materials, 2016, 15(4), 461.

Biosketch：
　　Prof. Nicholas A. Kotov, graduated from the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University in 1987. His 1990 PhD thesis combined experimental and computational description of photo-induced charge transport at liquid interfaces modeled on then emerged personal computers. After immigration to the USA in 1992, he took a post-doctoral appointment at the Chemistry Department of Syracuse University. The year of 1996 when he started independent research career at Oklahoma State University was pivotal in his work. Soon after christening a new lab, he focused on the studies of self-organization phenomena at nanoscale and ultrastrong composites. In 2003 he moved to the University of Michigan to become a faculty at Chemical Engineering Department and transition the experimental and theoretical knowledge of nanoscale self-assembly to engineering of new materials.