Seminar Schedule – Summer 2019
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Place: ASE 1.126
Mechanical Instability-driven Architecturing of Atomically-thin Materials
SungWoo Nam, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
New materials provide access to novel structure-property relationships that in turn deliver an innovative foundation for computing, sensing and actuation, health care, energy storage and conversion, and communications. The interplay of structures, strain and environments in nano- and micro-scales can drastically modify intrinsic material properties and produce new phases of matter with unconventional and reconfigurable electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Atomically-thin material systems have proven to be particularly attractive subject materials for instability-driven reconfigurable programming of material properties owing to their unique intrinsic properties, ultralow bending stiffness, and stackable nature.
In this talk, I will present our research on controlled deformation (i.e., architecturing) and interfacial control of atomically-thin materials, and the new and reconfigurable materials properties exhibited in such deformed and heterogeneously layered materials. First, I will introduce the shrink nano-fabrication approaches that we use to induce controlled deformation of atomically-thin materials, and the wide range of new properties engendered by these deformed materials (e.g., shape-induced plasmonic resonance, strain-induced exciton engineering and flexoelectricity). Second, I will present our work on interfacial control of atomically-thin materials to modulate fracture modes of thinfilms as well as enable control of electrical double layer formation. Finally, I will share our vision for dynamically reconfigurable programming and integration of novel material properties at the atomically-thin limit. These mechanical instability-induced modulations of materials at the atomic level will open the door to new phases of matter with unconventional and reconfigurable properties.
Biography
Dr. SungWoo Nam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE) at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He received a B.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Seoul National University, where he graduated first from the College of Engineering. Following three years of industry experience in carbon nanotube (CNT) synthesis/processing, he obtained his M.A. in Physics (2007) and Ph.D. in Applied Physics (2011) from Harvard University. After his Ph.D., he worked as a postdoctoral research associate at University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Nam is the recipient of the The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) Early Career Faculty Fellow Award, NSF CAREER Award, two DoD (AFOSR and ONR) Young Investigator Program (YIP) Awards, NASA Early Career Faculty (ECF) Award, American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award, UIUC Campus Distinguished Promotion Award, UIUC Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, UIUC Engineering Rose Award for Teaching Excellence, and UIUC Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising.
For further information, please contact Dr. Nanshu Lu at nanshulu@mail.utexas.edu or (512) 471-4208.