Inorganic Chemistry - Materials Chemistry - Physical Chemistry
The Lu group focuses on the development of functional hybrid organic-inorganic materials and nanomaterials with exotic and controllable optical, electronic, spin and magnetic properties. These materials are useful for energy-related applications including optoelectronics, spintronics, and catalysis. Our primary research interest is to discover and design new inorganic and hybrid materials with unique properties and to understand the fundamental processes through which light, charge, and spin are strongly coupled. Our approach to this challenge includes the development of new synthetic methodologies and materials characterization via steady-state and ultrafast spectroscopies. Research themes in the Lu group lie at the boundary of inorganic and physical chemistry. For more information, please check our publication page.
Current research interest include:
1. Hybrid organic-inorgnic solide-state materials: synthesis, characterization, and devices. Hybrid organic-inorgnic materials combine both molecular tunability from the organic phase, and the photophysical properties from the inorganic sublattice, thus offer a rich playground for chemist to design new materials with exotic, yet tunable, optical, electronic, and magnetic properties. We are particularly interested in developing solution-processable hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductors for cheap, efficient, and flexible optoelectronics including solar cell, photodetector, LED, and spin-optoelectronics. We explore the concept of symmetry-breaking enabled by chemical tools to afford non-centrosymmetric materials, such as, chiral hybrid metal-halide semiconductors, to twist photons via light-matter interaction, and to align electron spin states via the chiral induced spin selectivity (CISS). We fabricate next-generation spin-optoelectronic devices such as spin-LEDs that can control charge, spin and light with symmetry-breaking semiconductors. We seek to understand how the breaking of spatial reversal symmetry induces unconventional phenomenon coupled with light, charge and spin.
Nat. Rev. Chem., 2022, 6,470-485; JACS, 2022, 144, 4919; ACIE, 2022, e202215206; ACIE, 2023, e202304486.
ACS Nano., 2024, 18, 5890; Nano Lett., 2024, 10, 3125; Chem. Mater., 2022, 34, 2813; Chem. Mater., 2023, 36, 551.
2. Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals: synthesis, photophysics and photochemistry. Collidal semiconductor nanocrystals are a class of nanocrystalline materials that exhibit very interesting photophysical properties due to quantum confinement. For instance, due to the quantized energy and relaxation of the translational momentum conservation rule, "Auger process" can be much more efficient than bulk semiconductors, generating high energy hot electrons. Our group is particularly interested in understanding their rich photophysics with spectroscopic tools, and to unitilize their unique photophysical properties to enable challenging photonic process and chemical transformations. We are interested in developing a nanocrystal-based composite that can efficiently convert NIR photons to visible photons via a photon upconversion process. We are also exploring new photophysical processes such as Auger process, thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), localize surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR), and spin-involved photochemistry to enable challenging two-photon process and chemical transformations.
EES, 2020, 13,1347-1376; JACS, 2019, 141, 22242; ACS Nano, 2019, 13, 939.
Funding:
ACS Nano., 2024, 18, 5890; Nano Lett., 2024, 10, 3125; Chem. Mater., 2022, 34, 2813; Chem. Mater., 2023, 36, 551.
2. Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals: synthesis, photophysics and photochemistry. Collidal semiconductor nanocrystals are a class of nanocrystalline materials that exhibit very interesting photophysical properties due to quantum confinement. For instance, due to the quantized energy and relaxation of the translational momentum conservation rule, "Auger process" can be much more efficient than bulk semiconductors, generating high energy hot electrons. Our group is particularly interested in understanding their rich photophysics with spectroscopic tools, and to unitilize their unique photophysical properties to enable challenging photonic process and chemical transformations. We are interested in developing a nanocrystal-based composite that can efficiently convert NIR photons to visible photons via a photon upconversion process. We are also exploring new photophysical processes such as Auger process, thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), localize surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR), and spin-involved photochemistry to enable challenging two-photon process and chemical transformations.
EES, 2020, 13,1347-1376; JACS, 2019, 141, 22242; ACS Nano, 2019, 13, 939.