Chan Research Group - 2016 in Review

2016 was an eventful year for the Chan Research Group. We had two graduate students and a visiting researcher join our team, major renovations done, instruments purchased, and our first paper published. Here's looking back at our first year of operation:

Feb 2016:   Dr. Chan was awarded an NSERC Discovery Grant.
Mar 2016:   Renovations to our D'Iorio 327 and 320 labs began.
Apr 2016:   Thomas Brossier, visiting MSc student from Paris, arrived in Ottawa.
Jun 2016:   Guoxian and Craig joined us as grad students.
Aug 2016:   Lab renovations complete. The Chan Group moved in.
Dec 2016:   Published our 1st paper on sulfonamide emitters in ACS Omega [link].

Sulfonamides in Organic Electronics - Blue-Emitting Helicene

Compared to red and green emitters, organic luminogens that emit standard- and deep-blue light remain challenging to design. Our recently published π-conjugated helicene is a deep-blue fluorophore in solution and the solid-state, with PL efficiency more than twice enhanced in the latter. This new sulfonamide / sultam-based motif introduces a brand new weapon to the arsenal of blue-emitting building blocks (e.g. triphenylethene, triarylamine-based systems). While common in pharmaceutical chemistry, sulfonamides are rare guests in organic electronics and thus represent a tantalizing possibility to explore.

                                                                            CIE (x = 0.155, y = 0.054)

Sulfonamides for Organic Electronics - Deep-Blue Emitter

My team recently reported a sulfonamide-based blue-emitting organic fluorophore that exhibits crystallization-induced emission enhancement.[1] Sulfonamides remain highly underutilized as functional groups in organic electronics and should be further explored as versatile molecular motifs for engineering structure-property-function relationships.

[1]  Sultam-Based Hetero[5]helicene: Synthesis, Structure, and Crystallization-Induced
      Emission Enhancement, ACS Omega 2016, 1, 1336-1342. [link]

Chan Research Group - University of Ottawa (Chemistry)

I am an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa. I am also the principal investigator of a research group that is working to develop novel functional organic materials. Specifically, we are designing and synthesizing π-conjugated organic molecules and polymers with unique optoelectronic, magnetic, and/or biological properties. Learn more about us at our research website.