Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemistry
About
General research interests are molecular design, synthesis, modification, and self-assembly of smart polymers for biomedical and optoelectronic applications, including Plastic Electronics, Organic Light Emitting Molecules, 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.
Plastic Electronics: Conjugated polymers have became emerging materials for electronic devices. Their optical and semiconducting properties can be readily tunable through rational molecular design and chemical synthesis. We have been investigating structure-property correlation of conjugated polymers to establish molecular design rules to achieve high charge mobility, optimized energy levels, enhanced stability and fabrication versatility. Designer conjugated polymers for TFT, solar cells, thermoelectric, and LED are under development.
Organic Phosphors: Recently we developed a molecular design principle to realize pure organic phosphor having high emission quantum yield even at room temperature with oxygen presence. By rationally designing directed heavy atom effects through intermolecular halogen bonding in crystalline aromatic carbonyl compounds we achieved highly efficient triplet generation and suppression of vibration dissipation. Controlling electron density of such organic phosphorescent materials we could achieve active color tuning as well. We are developing a second generation of organic phosphors to apply them to device applications.
Representative Publications
1. Min Sang Kwon, Youngchang Yu, Caleb Coburn, Andrew W. Phillips, Kyeongwoon Chung, Apoorv Shanker, Jaehun Jung, Gunho Kim, Kevin Pipe, Stephen R. Forrest, Ji Ho Youk, Johannes Gierschner, Jinsang Kim “Suppressing Molecular Motions for Enhanced Room Temperature Phosphorescence (RTP) of Metal-free Organic Materials” Nat. Commun. 2015 Accepted
2. Kyeongwoon Chung, Andrew McAllister, David Bilby, Bong-Gi Kim, Min Sang Kwon, Emmanouil Kioupakis, Jinsang Kim “Designing interchain and intrachain properties of conjugated polymers for latent optical information encoding” Chemical Science 2015 Accepted
3. Kyeongwoon Chung, Min Sang Kwon, Brendan Leung, Antek Wong-Foy, Min Su Kim, Jeongyong Kim, Shuichi Takayama, Johannes Gierschner, Adam Matzger, Jinsang Kim “Shear-triggered Crystallization and Light Emission of a Thermally Stable Organic Supercooled Liquid” ACS Central Science 2015, 1, 94.
4. Gun-Ho Kim+, Dongwook Lee+, Apoorv Shanker+, Lei Shao, Min Sang Kwon, David Gidley, Jinsang Kim* and Kevin Pipe* “High thermal conductivity in amorphous polymer blends by engineered interchain interactions” Nature Materials 2015, 14, 295.
5. Min Sang Kwon+, Dongwook Lee+, Sungbaek Seo, Jaehun Jung, Jinsang Kim “Engineering Intermolecular Interactions for Efficient Room Temperature Phosphorescence from Purely Organic Materials in Amorphous Polymer Matrices” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 11177.
6. Dongwook Lee, Bolton Onas, Byoung Choul Kim, Ji Ho Youk, Shuichi Takayama, Jinsang Kim “Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Metal-free Organic Materials in Amorphous Polymer Matrices” J. of Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 6325.
7. Bong-Gi Kim, Eun Jeong Jeong, Jong Won Chung, Sungbaek Seo, Bonwon Koo, Jinsang Kim “A Molecular Design Principle of Lyotropic Liquid-Crystalline Conjugated Polymers with Directed Alignment Capability for Plastic Electronics” Nature Materials 2013, 12, 659.
8. Bong-Gi Kim, Xiao Ma, Chelsea Chen, Yutaka Ie, Elizabeth Wolfe Coir, Hossein Hashemi, Yoshio Aso, Peter F. Green, John Kieffer, Jinsang Kim “Energy Level Modulation of HOMO, LUMO, and Band-gap in Conjugated Polymers for Organic Photovoltaic Application” Adv. Funct. Mater. 2013, 23, 439.
9. Kangwon Lee, Jiseok Lee, Eun Jeong Jeong, Adam Kronk, Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson, Megan S. Lim, Jinsang Kim “Conjugated Polyelectrolyte-Antibody Hybrid Molecules for Live Cell Imaging” Adv. Mater. 2012, 24, 2479.
10. Onas Bolton, Kangwon Lee, Hyong-Jun Kim, Kevin Lin, Jinsang Kim “Activating Efficient Phosphorescence from Metal-free Organics by Crystal Design” Nature Chemistry 2011, 3, 205.
Research Areas(s)
- Environmental Chemistry
- Materials Chemistry
- Sensor Science
- Functional Polymers for Biomedical and Optoelectronic Applications
