User:Benjah-bmm27/degree/4/CFJF

=Advanced Functional Materials, CFJF=

Main themes

 * Materials chemistry
 * Functional nanomaterials
 * Noncovalent interactions
 * Self-assembly
 * Supramolecular chemistry
 * Nanoscience and nanotechnology
 * Surfactants and liquid crystals
 * Tectons and codons
 * Molecular electronics
 * Top-down and bottom-up design in nanotechnology

Analytical tools

 * NMR spectroscopy, including solid-state NMR
 * Mass spectrometry (MS)
 * X-ray diffraction (XRD)
 * Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)
 * Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), polarizing light microscopy (PLM)
 * Scanning probe microscopy, including atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM)
 * Porosimetry
 * Ultraviolet spectroscopy (UV), fluorescence spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy (IR), electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR)...

Biomaterials

 * Biomaterials: surfactants, bio-motifs and DNA origami

Surfactants

 * Contact preparation for lyotropic phase behaviour determination

Proteins in nanotechnology

 * Proteins:
 * have nanometre dimensions
 * are linear polymers that spontaneously fold (protein folding) into well-defined 3D structures
 * further self-assemble into multi-subunit complexes, effectively little machines (see biomolecular structure and protein quaternary structure)
 * are biocompatible

Applications of secondary structure

 * Protein secondary structure motifs
 * Alpha helices and beta sheets — can attach to electroactive oligomers like TANI to organise them into 2D sheets


 * The leucine zipper
 * Self-assembled peptide fibrils: sticky end assembly
 * Nature produces blunt-ended assemblies
 * It is possible to design sticky ended assemblies
 * Can then form hydrogels by linking fibres via noncovalent interactions

Nucleotide and DNA assembly

 * Hydrogen bonds in DNA base pairs

Guanosines

 * Guanosines: nucleosides (base + sugar) where the base is guanine
 * G-quartets: hydrogen-bonded guanosine tetramers
 * G-quadruplexes: stacks of G-quartets
 * Applications as a structural and functional motif

DNA origami

 * DNA structure is on the nanometre scale, is predictable and programmable, yet tolerates imperfections
 * Many 2D DNA arrays known Holliday junctions and so on
 * Can also make 3D DNA arrays and cages

Functional π-conjugated systems

 * Conjugated systems: sequences of alternating single and double bonds. Triple bonds can replace double bonds, as can lone pairs or vacant orbitals.
 * Important for organic electronics
 * Length scales: molecular electronics < supramolecular electronics < plastic electronics

Conducting polymers

 * Metallic behaviour of polyacetylene first reported in 1977, led to Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 to Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa conducting polymers "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers".