{"id":1462,"date":"2015-06-08T16:47:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T16:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/?p=1462"},"modified":"2015-08-31T01:42:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T01:42:59","slug":"nsf-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/nsf-career\/","title":{"rendered":"[UNL News] NSF award aids Sinitskii\u2019s nanoribbon research"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

Graphene has garnered much attention for its potential to improve electronics, solar cells and other devices. A University of Nebraska-Lincoln chemist is using his breakthrough graphene production technique to put the promising nanomaterial to the test.<\/p>\n

Alexander Sinitskii, assistant professor of chemistry, has earned a five-year, $538,477 Faculty Early Career Development Program Award from the National Science Foundation to investigate graphene\u2019s properties. These prestigious grants, known as CAREER awards, support pre-tenure faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.<\/p>\n

<\/div>

<\/p>\n
\"alex-sinitskii\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo by: Craig Chandler | University Communications<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Sinitskii is capitalizing on a technique he developed to create atomically precise graphene nanoribbons, ultra-narrow bands of one-atom thick sheets of carbon. He and his team build the ribbons from the bottom up, using organic chemistry techniques to couple smaller molecules together.<\/p>\n

That level of precision allows Sinitskii to create nanoribbons with different widths and edges, such as adding nitrogen or hydrogen atoms. Now he\u2019s investigating how these differing characteristics influence the nanoribbons\u2019 properties.<\/p>\n

Scientists have studied graphene nanoribbons theoretically for many years. These studies predicted that physical properties of nanoribbons strongly depend on their structural parameters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut until recently there were no synthetic techniques to make those materials and test the predictions. Now we have an opportunity to study graphene nanoribbons experimentally and confirm their predicted properties,\u201d said Sinitskii, a member of both UNL\u2019s Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience and its NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.<\/p>\n

Understanding changes in nanoribbon properties will help Sinitskii and others design materials with the best performance for diverse applications.<\/p>\n

For example, graphene is touted for its conductivity. But it conducts electrons so well, it\u2019s hard to control for use in electronics.<\/p>\n

Sinitskii\u2019s nanoribbons are able to harness graphene\u2019s conductivity for use as a semiconductor in electronics. He will experiment with various nanoribbon characteristics to test and optimize its semiconductive potential.<\/p>\n

Graphene nanoribbons also have photovoltaic properties. Creating a variety of nanoribbons capable of absorbing photons from a wide range of the sun\u2019s energy wavelengths could improve solar cell efficiency, he said.<\/p>\n

Fuel cells may benefit from graphene nanoribbons as well. Fuel cells generate electricity from the energy in fuel through a chemical reaction. The nanoribbons can act as a catalyst to speed up certain reactions, improving fuel cell efficiency. Preliminary evidence suggests adding nitrogen atoms to the nanoribbons\u2019 edges improves their catalytic capabilities.<\/p>\n

Sinitskii plans to develop prototype devices incorporating graphene nanoribbons. \u201cWe will synthesize different varieties of graphene nanoribbons and test them for applications in electronics, photovoltaics and catalysis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the CAREER award, Sinitskii also will develop new nanoscience courses and conduct outreach activities to promote graduate, undergraduate and high school student education in materials chemistry and nanofabrication.<\/p>\n

\n

Written by: Gillian Klucas | Research and Economic Development<\/p>\n

UNL news<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qrjz-nA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1462"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1695,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1462\/revisions\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chemweb.unl.edu\/sinitskii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}