Four years ago Professor Geoffrey A. Ozin (GAO) conceived, organized and initiated a n International Collaborative Teaching and Research Exchange Program (ICREP) in Nanochemistry involving faculty, graduate and post graduate chemistry students at the University of Toronto UOT, the Max Planck Institute MPI for Colloid and Surface Chemistry in Golm, The Royal Institution RI Great Britain and University College London UCL, and the Universite Polytechnique Valencia UPV in Valencia.
In the paragraphs below a brief summary is presented of the history of exchange visits of faculty and graduate students, the main activities and accomplishments that have emerged from the first four years of the program, the goal being to establish nanochemistry teaching and research collaborations between participating institutions in the four countries.
Professor David E. Williams (DEW) involvement with the department and the GAO materials chemistry group began when as Head of Department, Chemistry, UCL, he visited the chemistry department UOT 2000-2001 and taught a six-lecture section on inorganic electrochemistry as part of the inorganic core graduate course, structural and physical methods in inorganic chemistry. He worked with the GAO materials chemistry group on tin oxide opals and dye-sensitized mesostructured titanium dioxide, which if brought to reality could lead to new generation materials for gas sensors, biosensors, solar cells and battery electrodes, respectively.
DEW, specialist in solid-state materials chemistry and electrochemical sensors, changed positions recently from Head of Department, Chemistry, UCL, to Chief Scientific Officer Unipath, Bedford England . He visited the UOT chemistry department in 2002 to establish collaborative projects with the GAO materials chemistry group in the area of photonic crystal optical absorption amplifiers. This research involves Professor Hernan Miguez (HM) who was a PDF in the GAO group and now is a Professor at the Universite Polytechnique Valencia UPV as well as Visiting Professor in the UOT chemistry department involved in teaching and research. Being both a materials chemist and condensed matter physicist with unique expertise in nanophotonics he is a key contributor of the four country collaborating groups.
DEW collaborated with GAO, Professor Ian Manners (IM) and graduate student Robert Scott, on tin dioxide opal and inverse opal chemical sensors 2000-2002, and with students John Halfyard, Josie Galloro and Madlen Ginzburg on poly(ferrocenylsilane) electrostatic superlattice electrodes for application as biochemical sensors. GAO and graduate student Ivana Soten collaborated with DEW and Professor Laurie Peters of Bath University on photoelectrochemistry of dye sensitized mesoporous titania and lithium intercalation electrochemistry of mesoporous titania.
This collaboration has been expanded to include Professor Daren Caruana (DC) of UCL, recent winner of the Marlow Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry recognized for exceptional contributions to electrochemistry by a researcher under the age of 40. He visited the department in August 2003 to interact with the GAO and IM research groups and expand their electrochemistry research effort with joint graduate students Andre Arsenault , John Halfyard and Sebastian Fournier involving poly(ferrocenylsilane) biosensors, colloidal photonic crystal displays and nanoring devices.
Professor Dewi Lewis (DL), University College London, visited the chemistry department UOT 2001-2002 and taught a six-lecture section on computational materials chemistry as part of the inorganic core graduate course, structural and physical methods in inorganic chemistry. He was accompanied on this trip with Dr. Robert Bell (RB) a Royal Society Research Fellow at The Royal Institution Great Britain. They worked with the GAO materials group on computer modeling of the feasibility of synthesizing organozeolite materials. Materials synthesis experiments guided by theoretical blueprints that emerge from the computer modeling are underway in a joint effort. If this idea could be reduced to practice it would create an exciting new class of crystalline organosilica framework materials with bridging organic groups integrated within the walls. A breakthrough of this type would have a disruptive influence on the entire field of zeolite science.
GAO visited the UCL-RI chemistry departments in 2004-03, 2003-02, 2002-01 and 2001-00, and during these visits was involved in joint research projects and taught a six-lecture section on materials self-assembly as part of the core graduate course New Directions in Materials Chemistry. He also presented research lectures during these visits at the RI on the race for the photonic crystal chip and at UCL on the synthetic all-optical computer. RB of the RI visited the chemistry department UOT 2002 and worked with the GAO materials group on computer modeling of the mechanical and dielectric properties of periodic mesoporous organosilica materials, an exciting new class of nanocomposites recently developed in the GAO group. Ben Hatton, a GAO graduate student jointly supervised with Professor Douglas Perovic (DP) Materials Science and Engineering UOT, is spearheading this project with experiments conducted at the UOT and computer modeling at RI, where he has already made two visits 2003 and 2002 each of a month duration where he has been learning computational methods that underpin the calculations of mechanical and dielectric properties of solids. This research could lead to utility of periodic mesoporous organosilica film as a low k packaging material for smaller and faster microelectronic circuits. Both DL and RB delivered tutorials to the GAO group on modern methods in computational materials chemistry during their 2002 visit to the department.
Professor Mark Green (MG), RI and UCL, first visited the chemistry department UOT in 2001-2002 to work with the GAO group on the synthesis, structure characterization and magnetic/magneto-optical properties measurements of mesoporous yttria stabilized zirconia/lanthanum strontium manganates and ferromagnetic photonic crystals, which if reduced to practice would provide more efficient solid oxide fuel cell cathodes and magnetically tunable diffractive optical devices for optical telecommunication and optical computers. He also lectured to the group on giant magneto-resistant materials. He will visit the department again in 2004 to expand this joint effort. An exciting paper has just emerged from the joint fuel cell research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society
Professor Ivan Parkin (IP), and graduate student Julio Desouza UCL, in 2001 began collaborating with GAO and HM on colloidal photonic crystal amplified photocatalysis. Julio Desouza spent three months working with the GAO group to gain experience in the colloidal crystal chemistry in order to conduct photocatalysis experiments in his group at UCL, who are experts in the area and well equipped to perform these kinds of photocatalysis experiments. GAO was intimately involved in this work during his visits to UCL. The project is looking very promising and if successful has the potential to revolutionize photon driven catalytic processes and should lead to some trend setting papers and maybe key intellectual property.
Professor Richard Catlow (RC), Director Davy Faraday Laboratory RI and Head of Department UCL may spend some time in the department next year to lecture on materials chemistry and expand and enrich the computational aspects of the organozeolite and periodic mesoporous organosilica projects with DL, RB and GAO and his students. A strong collaborative research project on experimental studies and computer modeling of confined colloidal crystal nucleation and growth in surface relief patterns is in the planning stage.
Dr. Markus Antonietti (MA) of the Max Planck Institute for Colloid and Surface Chemistry in Golm, Germany and GAO in 2002 officially initiated joint projects with post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Polarz and graduate student Rebecca Voss in GAOs group on functional periodic mesoporous organosilicas and graduate student Arnold Thomas in MAs group on chiral periodic mesoporous organosilicas. GAO made his first visit to the MPI in Golm, for a week in April 2003 where he gave four lectures on materials self-assembly and interacted with a large number of MPI scientists and students in the area of colloidal photonic crystals and periodic mesoporous silicas. During this visit to the MPI in Golm GAO and MA wrote a paper on the promise and problems of mesoporous materials. It has recently appeared in Chemistry – European Journal, the aim of the publication being to address the question, after a decade of research on mesoporous materials, why meso? GAO spent a week in February 2004 at the MPI in Golm where he gave a lecture on mesochemistry – synthesis in intermediate dimensions, planned and managed ongoing and future research projects on periodic mesoporous organosilicas with joint students and post-doctoral fellows.
The MPI-UOT collaboration was initiated when MA visited the department in the fall term 2002, to deliver a lecture on his research at MPI and plan and conduct joint research on periodic mesoporous organosilicas with post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Polarz, and graduate students Arnold Thomas and Rebecca Voss. He also served as external examiner for the final Ph.D. oral of GAO graduate student Teddy Asefa who was a co-inventor of the periodic mesoporous organosilica materials called PMOs, first described in his Ph.D. thesis and published in Nature 1999.
Professor Carl Amrhein the Dean of Arts and Science at the time strongly supported the Canada-Germany leg of the collaborative program between the GAO materials research group UOT and materials researchers at the MPI in Germany. The Dean obtained five years of funding from DAAD, to support the costs of German graduate and post-graduate students involved in this international collaborative research exchange program. This joint research is going very well and a number of exciting papers are expected to emerge from the Canada-Germany collaboration, particularly noteworthy being one that describes the first example of a chiral periodic mesoporous organosilica with demonstrated function in chiral separations.
HM is now a Professor of Physics at the UPV in Valencia . He has been appointed Visiting Professor in our chemistry department where he is involved in undergraduate teaching as well as many joint research projects involving the optical properties of new classes of colloidal photonic crystals with students in GAOs group as well as joint students working with GAO and IM. Tutorials by HM on experimental and theoretical optical physics of photonic crystals to GAOs group have proven to be of tremendous value.
GAO made his first visit to UPV in January 2003 for a week where he delivered lectures in the departments of chemistry and physics on recent developments in periodic mesoporous organosilicas and colloidal photonic crystals. Joint projects, proposals, students and papers were formulated, planned, written and undertaken during this visit. This collaborative research program with HM has proven to be incredibly successful as can be judged by the very large number of papers in top rank journals, five journal front covers in elite materials chemistry journals, two in Advanced Materials, one in Advanced Functional Materials, one in Chemical Communications and one in Journal of Materials Chemistry, numerous media reports on the work in Nature Science Update 2003, Chemical Engineering News 2003, Photonics Spectra 2003, Royal Society of Chemistry Materials Chemistry News Forum 2003, MRS Bulletin 2002, UOT Magazine 2002, UOT Varsity 2002, and creation of an impressive portfolio of colloidal photonic crystal patents, that have recently been assigned to the UOT.
During the January 2003 visit to Valencia GAO expanded the collaboration with UPV to include Professor Francisco Meseguer in physics, he supervised the ground breaking opal materials chemistry and optical physics Ph.D. thesis research of HM. Professor Meseguer is responsible for establishing the new microphotonics research center at UPV, a state-of-the-art facility that will focus on materials chemistry, physics and engineering of miniaturized all-optical circuits of light.
The synergies between materials synthetic, analytical and computer modeling and condensed matter physics research at the UOT-RI-UCL-MPI-UPV are unique and ideal for realizing major breakthroughs in a number of areas of nanochemistry research. Joint research projects and teaching are well underway in all four institutions, exchange of faculty, graduate students and post doctoral fellows is in full swing, top notch papers are being published and written, numerous patents have been filed, licensing agreements for intellectual property are under negotiation, research grant proposals are being formulated and will be submitted to Canadian-UK-German-Spanish agencies for funding of joint post doctoral and graduate students to work on collaborative project.
JOINT PROJECTS
Some of the collaborative projects currently underway include those between Professor David Williams and Professor Geoffrey Ozin who have combined their expertise in solid state and nanochemistry to create a new class of self-assembling nanostructured chemical sensors, Dr. Mark Green, Professor Ian Manners and Professor Ozin who are focusing their joint efforts on tunable photonic crystals, Dr. Ivan Parkin, Professor David Williams and Professor Ozin who are working on novel nanostructured photocatalysts, Professor David Williams, Professor Ian Manners and Professor Geoffrey Ozin who are researching nanocomposite inorganic-polymer electrochemical biosensors, and Dr. Dewi Lewis, Dr. Robert Bell, Professor Richard Catlow and Professor Ozin who are directing their attention to computational and experimental studies of organic-inorganic nanocomposite materials.
JOINT PUBLICATIONS
Scott, R.W.J., Yang, S.M., Coombs, N., Ozin, G.A., Williams, D.E., Tin Dioxide Opals and Inverted Opals: Near-Ideal Microstructures for Gas Sensors, Adv. Mat. September 2001.
Scott, R., Yang, S.M., Williams, D.E., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Electronically Addressable Tin Dioxide Opal Gas Sensor Fabricated on Interdigitated Gold Microelectrodes, Chem. Commun. in press.
Scott, R., Yang, S.M., Coombs, N., Williams, D.E., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Engineered Sensitivity of Structured Tin Dioxide Chemical Sensors: Opaline Architectures with Controlled Necking, Adv. Funct. Mater. in press.
Halla, J., Mamak, M., Williams, D., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Meso-SiO2-C12EO10OH-CF3SO3H - A Novel proton Conducting Solid Electrolyte, Adv. Funct. Mater. in press.
Mamak, M., Métraux, G., Petrov, S., Coombs, N., Green, M., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Lanthanum Strontium Manganite/Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Nanocomposites Derived From a Surfactant Assisted Co-assembled Mesoporous Phase, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 13, 328-334.
Arseneault, A., Miguez, H., Kitaev, V., Manners, I., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Photonic Ink: Widely Wavelength Tuneable Colloidal Photonic Crystal Device, Adv. Mater. 15, 503-507.
Miguez, H., Yang, S.M., Ozin, G.A., 2003, Optical Properties of Colloidal Photonic Crystals Confined in Rectangular Microchannels. Langmuir in press.
Míguez, H., Tétreault, N., Yang, S.M., Ozin, G.A., 2003, A New Synthesis Approach to Silicon Colloidal Photonic Crystals with a Novel Topology: Micromolding in Inverse Silica Opal (MISO), Adv. Mater. in press.
Míguez, H., Tétreault, N., Yang, S.M., Ozin, G.A., 2002, Oriented Free Standing Three-Dimensional Inverted Colloidal Photonic Crystal Microfibers, Adv. Mat. 14, 1805-1808 (front cover).
Miguez, H., Tetreau, N., Hatton, B., Yang, S. M., Perovic, D., Ozin, G.A., 2002, Pore Size/Connectivity Control in Colloidal Crystals by CVD Layer-by-Layer Growth of Silica, Chem. Commun. 2736-37.
Míguez, H., Yang, S.M., Ozin, G.A., 2002, Colloidal Photonic Crystal Microchannel Array with Periodically Modulated Thickness, Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 2493-95.
Galloro, J., Ginzburg, M., Míguez, H., Yang, S.M., Coombs, N., Safa-Sefat, A., Greedan, J.E., Manners, I., Ozin, G.A., 2002, Replicating the Structure of a Crosslinked Polyferrocenyl-silane Inverse Opal in the Form of a Magnetic Ceramic, Adv. Funct. Mat. 12, 382-388.
Soten, I., Miguez, H., Yang, S.M., Petrov, S., Coombs, N., Tetreault, N., Ozin, G.A., 2002, Barium Titanate Inverted Opals - Synthesis, Characterization and Optical Properties, Adv. Funct. Mater. 12, 71-77.
Míguez, H., Chomski, E., García-Santamaría, F., Ibisate, M., John, S., López, C., Meseguer, F., Mondia, J.P., Ozin, G.A., Toader, O., van Driel, H.M., 2001, Photonic Band Gap Engineering in Germanium Inverse Opals by CVD, Adv. Mater. 13, 1634-1637.
Miguez, H., Ozin, G.A., Yang, S.M., 2002 , Opal Circuits of Light - Planarized Microphotonic Crystal Chips, Adv. Funct. Mat. , 12, 425-431 (front cover).
