Dr. Ganpati Ramanath, John Tod Horton Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, will give a seminar titled "Nanomolecularly Tailored Inorganic Nanomaterials and Interfaces" to the interested faculty and students at Discovery Park.

Abstract

Engineering inorganic nanomaterials and their heterointerfaces for accessing and tuning novel properties is crucial for diverse applications. First, I will present a scalable microwave synthesis approach of molecularly-directed nanostructuring and doping that disentangles unfavorable couplings between multiple properties to realize a new class of high-figure-of-merit thermoelectric nanomaterials. I will show that doping-induced alterations in defect chemistry and electronic band structure provide a means to simultaneously achieving a high electrical conductivity and a high Seebeck coefficient, while nanostructuring leads to low thermal conductivities. Second, I will discuss our pioneering use of molecular nanolayers (MNLs) to tailor multiple properties of inorganic interfaces. Examples of property enhancements include unprecedented multifold increases in fracture toughness during static and dynamic loading, and thermal and electronic transport. Atomistic insights will be illustrated by combining macroexperiments with multiple spectroscopies and microscopy, and theoretical calculations. I will conclude with glimpses of emergent phenomena (e.g., viscoelastic bandgaps and optoacoustic damplification) underpinned by superposition of MNL effects in multilayers, and the use of MNLs to unobtrusively manipulate thin film growth mode, morphology and microstructure.

Bio

Dr. Ganpati Ramanath’s PhD thesis work won him a MRS Graduate Student Gold Award. After a brief stint in the electronics industry, he joined Rensselaer in 1998 as an assistant professor, was promoted as full professor in 2006, and is John Tod Horton Chaired Professor since 2013.

Over the last 20 years, he has pioneered the field of nanomaterials discovery and interface engineering for applications in energy and electronics. Ramanath has co-authored about 190 journal articles (Google Scholar h-index 53, 12,500 citations) including in Nature and Science. He holds 9 US patents. He has delivered about 240 invited/plenary/keynote talks worldwide. He co-founded ThermoAura Inc, served as the Director of the NY State Center for Future Energy Systems and an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology (2003-15).

Ramanath is a polyglot whose passion and hobbies include Indian classical music (live and TV performances in the US, Australia, and India), Indic culture and history, philosophy, vedic chants, bhajans, and multilingual puns. He plays many melodic musical instruments (keyboards, violin, flute, harmonica). He taught Indian heritage to kids of Indian origin for 20 years in the US. He now teaches spoken samskritam.