Inorganic Chemistry Seminar: Professor Adam Jaffe, University of Notre Dame
About the Seminar
"Hybrid Bronzes"
We have developed a broad family of mixed-valence hybrid organic-inorganic metal oxides as a new air- and water-stable material platform that we call hybrid bronzes. These versatile materials combine alternating layers of (1) two-dimensional inorganic metal-oxide sheets featuring adjustable band gaps and tunable carrier concentrations with (2) ordered arrays of molecular species that can direct structure and impart greater chemical versatility. In other words, these layered hybrid systems integrate inorganic conduction pathways that possess high charge carrier mobility with molecular centers that feature chemical function but would otherwise be unable to transport charge. Hybrid bronzes display tunable electronic structure, redox activity, and stimulus-driven phase transitions, lending themselves toward future applications in optoelectronics, energy storage, or even information technologies. In seeking design rules for this new material platform, we have explored the diverse structural and electronic property relationships within hybrid bronzes, revealing methods to control electronic transport through atomic substitution and molecular templation, as well as intriguing anomalous behavior under high pressure.
About the Speaker
Adam Jaffe is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame. He received his A.B. in Chemistry from Princeton University (2012), followed by his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Stanford University (2017). There he worked with Prof. Hemamala I. Karunadasa to explore optical and electronic properties of hybrid materials, including their energy-storage, light-emission, and compression-induced behavior. He joined the lab of Prof. Jeffrey R. Long at the University of California, Berkeley (2017–2021) as an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow, where he studied the separation of O2 from air in redox-active porous materials. He then started his independent career at the University of Notre Dame in 2021, where the Jaffe Group now develops new hybrid material platforms to target energy-related challenges and examines their structure-property relationships, including under high pressure.
Host: Hema Karunadasa
This seminar is supported by the William S. Johnson endowment honoring this esteemed chemist, who made significant contributions in the areas of synthetic and bioorganic chemistry.