Michael J Therien, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Chemistry

Contact Info:

Office Location:	5330 French Family Science Cen
Office Phone:	(919) 660-1670
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.chem.duke.edu/~mt83/

Teaching (Fall 2013):

• CHEM 990-2.01, TOP INORGANIC CHEMISTRY Synopsis

  LSRC D243, M 06:15 PM-08:45 PM

Specialties:

Physical
Organic
Biomolecular Structure and Function
Synthesis
Nanoscience and Materials
Inorganic

Research Interests:

Our research involves the synthesis of compounds, supramolecular assemblies, nano-scale objects, and electronic materials with unusual ground-and excited-state characteristics, and interrogating these structures using state-of-the-art transient optical, spectroscopic, photophysical, and electrochemical methods. Over chemical dimensions that span molecules to materials, we probe experimental and theoretical aspects of charge migration reactions and ultrafast electron transfer processes. Insights into the structure-property relationships of molecular, nanoscale, and macroscopic materials allow us to fabricate polarizable and hyperpolarizable chromophores, structures for molecular electronics applications, optical limiters, and a wide range of other electrooptic and photonic materials that include novel conducting polymers, structures for solar energy conversion, and new platforms for in vivo optical imaging. Other efforts in our laboratory involve the elaborating de novo electron- and energy-transfer proteins, interrogating catalytic redox reactions, designing catalysts for small molecule activation, and developing new tools to manipulate nanoscale structures.

Areas of Interest:

Sythesis
Nanoscience and Materials
Inorganic

Curriculum Vitae

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Ian Stanton  
• Laura Cleveland  
• Jeffrey Rawson  
• Josh Stetcher  
• Jae-Hong Park  
• Animesh Nayak  
• Wei Qi  
• Pravas Deria  

Postdocs Mentored

• Ying Ma (August, 2008 - present)  

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. M. Nikiforov, U. Zerwek, P. Milde, C. Loppacher, T.-H. Park, H. T. Uyeda, M. J. Therien, L. Eng, and D. Bonnell, The Effect of Molecular Orientation on the Potential of Porphyrin–Metal Contacts, Nano Lett no. 8 (2008), pp. 110-113
2. H. Zou, M. J. Therien, and J. K. Blasie, Structure and Dynamics of an Extended Conjugated NLO Chromophore within an Amphiphilic 4-Helix Bundle Peptide by Molecular Dynamics Simulation, J. Phys. Chem. B. no. 12 (2008), pp. 1350-1357
3. T. V. Duncan, K. Song, S.-T. Hung, I. Miloradovic, A. Persoons, T. Verbiest, M. J. Therien, and K. Clays, Molecular Symmetry and Solution Phase Structure Interrogated by Hyper-Raleigh Depolarization Measurements: Insights for Elaborating Highly Hyperpolarizable D2 – Symmetric Chromophores, Angew. Chemie, Int. Ed. Engl. no. 47 (2008), pp. 2978-2981
4. Y. K. Kang, P. Deria, P. J. Carroll, and M. J. Therien, Synthesis of Water-Soluble Poly-(p-phenyleneethynylene) in Neat Water Under Aerobic Conditions via Suzuki-Miyaura Polycondensatin using a Diborylethyne Synthon, Org. Lett. no. 10 (2008), pp. 1341-1344
5. T. V. Duncan, P. P. Ghoroghchian, I. V. Rubstov, D. A. Hammer, and M. J. Therien, Ultrafast Excited State Dynamics of Nanoscale Near Infrared Emissive Polymersomes, J. Am. Chem. Soc. no. 130 (2008), pp. 9773-9784