Title: Growth and Characterizations of Two-Dimensional Metal-Organic Frameworks
Presenter: Dong-Gwang Ha
Committee:
Prof. Marc Baldo (advisor)
Prof. Harry Tuller
Prof. Ju Li
Date and time: Wednesday, May 1st, 2:00 PM
Location: 13–2137 (von Hippel room)
Abstract:
Can we design a crystal as we do for organic molecules? Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a class of porous materials which crystalline structure can be designed based on extremely tunable building blocks of organic molecules and metal ions. They are typically insulators, but making them two-dimensional π‑conjugated structure results in conductive crystals. The two-dimensional π‑conjugated MOFs (2D πMOFs) are promising candidates for the applications need porous conductors such as supercapacitors and batteries. Also, the crystal tunability will enable us to explore exotic physical properties such as topological insulators. This great potential leads to the synthesis of various 2D πMOFs, but the crystal growth remains challenging which forbids the characterization of intrinsic electrical properties.
In this talk, I will explain the growth mechanism of 2D πMOFs and limitations of conventional growth methods. Based on the analysis, I will explain a newly developed growth method generates single-crystal plates of a 2D πMOF over 10 µm size, two orders of magnitude larger than previous reports. The large single-crystal plates enable us to explore the intrinsic in-plane properties of a 2D πMOF and details will be discussed. The new growth method developed in this work will facilitate to discover fundamental properties of various 2D πMOFs, and will help to unlock the huge potential of 2D πMOFs.