WIN - Chem Distinguished Lecture: Functional Nano and Micron-Scale Materials via Seeded Self-Assembly Driven by Crystallization

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the Department of Chemistry are pleased to present a Distinguished Lecture by Ian Manners, a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Victoria. 

This will be an in-person seminar held in QNC 1501!

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Functional Nano and Micron-Scale Materials via Seeded Self-Assembly Driven by Crystallization

Abstract

The ability to prepare materials in the 10 nm – 100 micron size regime with controlled shape, dimensions, tailored functionality, and structural hierarchy is still in its relative infancy and currently remains the virtually exclusive domain of biology. In this talk recent developments concerning a promising “seeded growth” route to well-defined 1D, 2D, and more complex hierarchical materials on these length-scales termed “living” crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA), will be described. Living CDSA can be regarded as a type of “living supramolecular polymerization” that is analogous to well-known “living” covalent (e.g. anion initiated) polymerizations of molecular monomers, but on a much longer length scale (typically, 20 nm – 5 microns). Living CDSA also shows analogies to biological “nucleation-elongation” processes such as amyloid fiber growth.

The building blocks or “monomers” used for living CDSA consist of a rapidly expanding range of crystallizable amphiphiles such as block copolymers, homopolymers with charged termini, or planar p-stacking molecules with a wide variety of chemistries. The seeds used as “initiators” for living CDSA are usually prepared from preformed polydisperse 1D or 2D assemblies by sonication.

This talk will focus on the creation of functional architectures via living CDSA with emphasis on applications in catalysis, optoelectronics, nanomedicine, and surface modification. Successful scale-up will be discussed. 

Biography

Ian Manners is Canadian and British. After receiving his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in the UK he conducted postdoctoral work in Germany and then in the USA. He joined the University of Toronto, Canada as an Assistant Professor in 1990 and was promoted to Full Professor in 1995 and was made a Canada Research Chair in 2001. In 2006 he returned to the UK to take up an EU Marie Curie Chair at Bristol and in 2018 he became a Canada 150 Research Chair at the University of Victoria, Canada.  He also holds a visiting professorship at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He is an elected member of the Canadian and the British National Academies of Science and the European Academy of Science.

If desired, more info is available at: https://web.uvic.ca/~imanners/ian/about.html