Group News:
September 2009 Jiseok's Adv. Mater. paper appears as an inside cover (vol 21 issue 36)
April 2009 Congratulations Donghwan on his successful Ph.D. defense
December 2008 Congratulations Myung-Su on his excellent Ph.D. research and becoming Dr. Kim. We will miss Myung-Su very much
December 2008 Congratulations Rob. He became a Ph.D. candidate
November 2008 Onas received one of the 1st Prize at the Graduate Student Symposium!
June 2008 Bonggi received the MMPEI Energy Fellowship. Congratulations!! http://www.mmpei.umich.edu/news/fellowships.html
June 2008 Laura became a Ph.D. candidate
June 2008 Jiseok became a Ph.D. candidate
May 2008 Myungsu received the Best Poster Award at the AVS meeting
May 2008 Hyong-Jun's Adv. Mater. paper was highlighted by "Noteworthy Chemistry" a news weekely published by the Americal Chemical Society. This paper was also highlighted by Nanomaterials News intertechpira.com http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=840&content_id=WPCP_008887&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1
April 2008 Congratulations Kangwon for his very successful Ph.D. research and becoming Dr. Lee. We will miss you very much
April 2008 Rob received Distinguished Achievement Award from MSE
March 2008 Jiseok's Potassium Sensor appeared in JACS
March 2008 Hyong-Jun's Adv. Mater. paper was highlighted in the UM press release http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6398
January 2008 Laura received Tissue Engineering and Regeneration Training Grant!
November 2007 Katharina received the best poster award at the ASM International
October 2007 Laura received Dow Chemical Award at the Macro Symposium
June 2007 Dr. Hyong-Jun Kim accepted a Research Professor Position from Seoul National University
June 2007 Congratulations Donghwan. He became a Ph.D. candidate
June 2007 Kangwon's signal amplifying conjugated polymer-based DNA microarry has been published in Angew. Chem.
May 2007 Onas became a Ph.D. candidate and received a Master's degree in MSE
May 2007 Onas' work on oxadiazoles has been published in Journal of Materials Science, Emerging Investigator Special Issue
March 2007 Kangwon Lee received an ACS Award at the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium, 233rd ACS national meeting, Chicago, IL
January 2007 Jinsang Kim received NSF CAREER AWARD
2006 Jinsang Kim received the Jon R. and Beverly S. Holt Award for Excellent in Teaching, CoE, UM
2006 Kangwon Lee received the 2006 CoE Distinguished Achievement Award
2006 Laura Povlich received the 2006 Worth Prize
2006 Laura Povlich received the 2006 Hugh Rumler Prize
2006 Ching-Chin Pun received a Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering
Education:
B.S. (Fiber and Polymer Science) Seoul National University, 1991M.S. (Fiber and Polymer Science) Seoul National University, 1993
Ph.D. (Materials Science and Engineering, Polymer) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
See Also:
Research Interests:
General research interests are molecular design, synthesis, modification, and self-assembly of smart polymers for biomedical and optoelectronic applications, including Biomaterials, Molecular Biosensors, Smart Gels, Optoelectronic Polymers, Conjugated Polymers, Block Copolymers, Organic-inorganic Hybrid Materials, Photovoltaic Cells, and Self-assembly. Currently we are studying the following areas:Biosensors: Sensitivity and selectivity are the most important parameters of a sensor. Nature provides high fidelity in biosynthesis. The unique combination of this specificity of the bio-system and the tunable properties of synthetic polymers would be a promising direction toward molecular sensors with high selectivity and sensitivity. We are developing molecular biosensors and bio-microarrays through bio-/synthetic hybrid systems for clinically important biological materials.
Photovoltaic Cells: Much effort has been made to convert abundant solar energy into useful electricity. The solar cells made of inorganic semiconductors require stringent manufacturing processes and high cost that are not suitable for large area application. Conjugated polymer (CP)-based solar cells are attractive alternatives due to easy processibility and the tunable optoelectronic properties. Hybrid composites of conjugated block copolymers and inorganic nanoparticles having hierarchical nano-ordering are currently under investigation by means of new materials development and nanoimprinting.
Negative Index Materials: This project focuses on the development of metamaterials that exhibit negative refractive index (NRI) at visible/infrared wavelength ranges via the rigid rod-flexible coil block copolymer-directed nanoparticles(NPs) assembly. The unit cell size of metamaterials, defined by the molecular structure of block copolymer and shape/size of NPs, governs their electromagnetic properties. Selective affinity between rod block and NPs can be used to confine the NPs at rod block domain. This simple solution cast method can provide bottom-up assembly for metamaterial and eliminate complicated and tedious fabrication methods.
Prior Experience:
Postdoctoral Scholar, California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 2001 - 2003.Research Scientist, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, 1994 - 1996.
Awards and Professional Service:
WCU (World Class University) Invited Professor, Seoul National University and Korea Science and Engineering Foundation 2008.NSF CAREER AWARD 2007.
Named One of Emerging Investigators by the Journal of Materials Chemistry May 2007.
Jon R. and Beverly S. Holt Awards for Excellence in Teaching, College of Engineering,University of Michigan 2006.
2002 ACS (American Chemical Society) ICI Award in Applied Polymer Science(August, 2002).
2002 IUPAC Award for Young Chemist for the Best Ph.D. Thesis in the Chemical Science (www.iupac.org/news/prize/2002/kim.html) (May, 2002).
MRS (Materials Research Society) Graduate Student Gold Award (November, 2000).
Il-Ju Academic Foundation Overseas Graduate Fellowship, Korea (June, 1996).
Graduation Award for Top Undergraduate Students (SNU, February 1991).