Carbon Based Nanosciences
This talk will review our work on nanosciences based on carbon. I will first briefly review our earlier work of carbon nanomaterials including carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons, and then focus on fluorescence biological imaging in the newly opened 1000-1700 nm NIR-II window to benefit from greatly suppressed photon scattering at long wavelengths. We show that NIR-II imaging is novel with up to millimeters tissue depth capable of sub-10 micron spatial resolution, using a wide range of fluorescent agents developed in our lab including carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, rare-earth nanoparticles, donor-acceptor conjugated polymers and small organic molecules. The second part of the talk will focus on our work on advancing new types of electrocatalysts for renewable energy applications and the development of novel batteries. I will talk about the development of electrocatalysts for water splitting with high energy efficiency and lifetimes. I will also present our recent work on the development of rechargeable Al ion battery utilizing some of the most abundant materials on earth including graphite, aluminum and urea. The latest results on operando in situ X ray diffraction of anion-graphite intercalation will be presented.