Defects that drive the scientific imagination
Researchers from the University of Wrocław will receive almost PLN 25 million from the National Science Centre to realise their projects as part of the OPUS 24 and SONATA 18 competitions.
One of the young researchers is dr Bartłomiej Pigulski from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Wrocław. “Non-benzenoidal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as molecular models of defected graphene” – this is the topic of research for which dr Bartłomiej Pigulski received funding from the NSC SONATA 18 competition (PLN 1 165 588).
What does your research involve?
Dr Bartłomiej Pigulski: – The synthesis of new organic molecules, the so-called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can be thought of as small sections of graphene. However, these are not structures composed solely of hexagons, the kind that many people probably commonly associate. Such classical benzenoid (containing inclusive hexagonal rings) graphene is only the beginning here.
The beginning of what?
– The beginning of a deliberate and purposeful introduction of structural defects that completely change, for example, the optical properties of molecules and, in the long term, lead to the design of organic materials with new and useful properties.
Which modifications are we talking about?
– For my research, I am focusing on defects in the form of odd rings, specifically azulene. Azulene is an extremely interesting molecule in its own right, with a beautiful blue colour, and PAHs containing this type of modification in their structure show interesting properties such as absorption in the near-infrared range. For the last few years, there has also been a great interest in multilayer systems, where changing the mutual arrangement of these layers allows the tuning of different features.
However, the range of different modifications is basically limited only by the imagination of the researchers.
The more modifications the more possibilities?
– In a sense, this could be said. However, at this stage it is important to understand exactly how the modifications affect the properties.
So you are investigating the effect of, for example, defects on the physico-chemical properties of graphene?
– To be more specific, it is on the properties of molecular models of graphene, i.e. small and precisely designed sections of it. An important part of my project is also the study of multilayer structures, i.e. how such defected layers interact with each other and how this affects their properties.
This is quite a hot and heavily explored topic in organic chemistry. Why?
– In such a huge research field as the chemistry of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (or, in other words, nanographenes), there are many potential new materials hidden. For several years, PAHs containing defects in the form of odd rings or multilayer systems have been studied very intensively, while molecules combining these two features have so far been lacking.
The aim of the project is to fill this gap?
– Yes, the main goal of the project is to obtain multilayer PAHs that will additionally have defects. From the chemical synthesis side, this is a challenging task, while a deep understanding of the effect of defects on the properties of graphene is critical for its applications.
Ed. Katarzyna Górowicz-Maćkiewicz
Translated by Julia Strzykała (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
