Characterization & Properties of Self-Assembled Materials

coursetab

c_weekno Title Body
1 Overview of selected examples of organic and hybrid self-assembly, and of the methods of their characterization; milestones in miniaturization - brief history of microprocessor development to single electron transistors; Moore뭩 law; invention of STM,
10 Basic diffraction theory, reciprocal lattice, Ewald sphere and Braggs law. Single crystal, fiber and powder diffraction.
11 X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques for studying self-assembly - principles of scattering; electron density and scattering length density distributions; small-angle X-ray amd meutron scattering (SAXS and SANS); scattering on periodic and nonperiodic
12 Surfaces and thin layers: grazing incidence WAXS and SAXS; electron and neutron reflectivity; electron, atomic force and scanning tunnelling microscopy.
13 Self-assembled monolayers and Langmuir-Blodgett films. Conducting polymers, OLEDs, polymer photovoltaic cells, basics of surface patterning and plastic electronics
14 Metamaterials
15 Summary and revision
2 Thermodynamic basis of self-assembly - free energies and phase diagrams (single component, binary, ternary), binodal and spinodal,
3 Interatomic and intermolecular forces
4 Optical properties and optical characterization techniques - including general background on interaction of polarized light with matter: birefringence,
5 Optical activity, linear and circular dichroism, ellipsometry, surface plasmon resonance (SPR)
6 Long- and short-range order, correlation function, disordered crystals (ordered, conformationally and orientationally disordered, plastic); liquid crystal self-assembly
7 TN and STN LC displays, multiplexing, active matrix; in-plane switching and VAN; ferroel. LCD;
8 Cholesterics - thermochromic devices, filters and lasers; PDLC; side-chain LCP and LC elastomers.
9 LCs with 2- and 3-d periodicity - complex self-assembly on the mesoscale; basic crystallography in 2 and 3 dimensions: unit cell, Miller indices, crystal systems, symmetry elements, point groups, Bravais lattices, plane groups, space groups