Lin Chen
Northwestern University, IL·Chemistry
When light hits certain materials, their atoms shift slightly, and those tiny movements change how the material absorbs, emits, and carries energy. Understanding this coupling between electronic and atomic motion is central to designing light-responsive materials.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Physics
- Topics
organic metal halide hybrids
excited state dynamics
ultrafast spectroscopy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Track how charge carriers and excitons localize and evolve in organic metal halide hybrids on femtosecond timescales using ultrafast optical spectroscopy.
- Reveal the atomic-level structural reorganization that follows light absorption in these deformable-lattice materials, using ultrafast X-ray absorption and X-ray scattering.
- Model excited-state properties and structure-function relationships of 0D, 1D, and 2D organic metal halide hybrids with density functional theory (DFT) calculations.
- Determine how lattice dimensionality (isolated clusters, chains, or sheets of metal halide units) controls the coupling between electronic excitation and atomic motion, by comparing designed material series.
More about the research
This collaborative project, shared with researchers at Florida State University, examines that coupling in organic metal halide hybrids (OMHHs) — materials combining organic molecules with metal-halide building blocks, notable for their soft, deformable crystal lattices.
Why it matters
Light-responsive materials underpin emitters, detectors, and other optoelectronic devices. By showing how atomic structure shifts under light and how those shifts change optical and electronic behavior, this work could give chemists and engineers rational design rules for new hybrid materials rather than relying on trial and error. The project also supports science education through summer programs and public exhibitions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ajay Ram Srimath Kandada
Wake Forest University, NC·Physics·Early-career
Measure how excitons couple to lattice vibrations in 2D metal halide perovskites by recording noise in the amplitude and phase of the optical response after launching coherent phonons, to isolate how random lattice fluctuations drive anharmonicity and polaron formation.
Claudia Turro
Ohio State University, OH·Chemistry
Determine whether fast population of the metal-centered triplet ligand field (3LF) state is required for light-triggered ligand exchange in Ru(II) complexes, or whether exchange can occur directly from the 3MLCT state, using ultrafast electronic and vibrational spectroscopy.
Xu Zhang
California State University-Northridge, CA·Chemistry
Use density functional theory calculations and machine learning, alongside in-situ characterization, to explain how N-heterocyclic carbene ligands bind noble metal surfaces and thereby control nanocrystal size and exposed facets.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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