WELCOME TO DEL-LABS
Directing Electrons with Light
LATEST NEWS
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RESEARCH
The efficient transport and interconversion of energy between photons, electrons, ions and heat underpins life on earth. In modern technologies ranging from solar panels to computers, batteries and health sensors, energy moves slowly, randomly and often inefficiently towards target conversion sites. We aim to direct energy flow in emerging materials in ways that are targeted and efficient, moving beyond random motion to unleash new paradigms for extracting more energy from solar panels, storing more energy in batteries, speeding up information transport and processing, and exploiting correlated electronic systems for new applications.
We use light as a powerful stimulus to initiate, image and control electronic behavior in emerging materials on extreme spatiotemporal scales. Questions we explore include:
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How do we image individual electrons moving and interacting with their surroundings in material lattices?
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How do we control the direction and speed at which energy packets move towards functional targets?
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How do we unlock exotic emergent phenomena and exploit them in modern devices?
The ongoing explosion of discoveries in quantum, meta- and nanomaterials provides the perfect platform for us to answer these questions now.
Super-resolution imaging
of electronic transport and material energy landscapes
Optical control of nuclear-electronic coupling and energy flow on material mesoscales
Optical manipulation of strongly correlated electronic behavior with confined light
In the process of answering these questions, we will invent new tools capable of non-invasively imaging events happening over femtoseconds to hours at the single-nanometer scale. These tools are often relevant to a broad range of scientific disciplines: think taking movies of self-assembling biological or material building blocks, of neurons emitting action potentials, and of non-dissipative electronic transport in superconductors.
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In addition to gaining a deep fundamental understanding of light-matter interactions, students and postdocs in the group acquire experience in nonlinear optics, super-resolution microscopy, ultrafast visible, IR and terahertz spectroscopy, and materials design and characterization. We collaborate broadly with both theoretical and experimental research groups at Columbia and beyond.
THE TEAM
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Postdoctoral scholar, 2016-2019
Ginsberg group, University of California, Berkeley
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Doctoral Prize Fellow, 2015
​PhD Physical Chemistry, 2010-2014
Weinstein group, University of Sheffield​
BSc Chemistry, 2015-2019
National Taiwan University
BA Chemistry and Global Health, 2015-2019
Washington University in St. Louis
BSc Chemistry, 2014-2019
Wuhan University
​Visiting researcher, North Carolina
State University
Read more about the team here.
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We continue to look for motivated students and postdocs interested in spectroscopy, microscopy and materials science to join the group. Postdoc candidates have a strong background in chemical physics or physical chemistry and experience with one or a combination of the following: ultrafast spectroscopy, super-resolution microscopy, quantum materials, nonlinear optics. Contact Milan for more information.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Delor M, Weaver H, Yu Q, Ginsberg N (2019).
Imaging material functionality through 3D nanoscale tracking of energy flow
Delor M*, Dai J*, Roberts T*, Rogers J*, Hamed S, Neaton J, Geissler P, Francis M, Ginsberg N (2018).
Exploiting chromophore–protein interactions through linker engineering to tune photoinduced dynamics in a biomimetic light-harvesting platform
Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 140, pp. 6278–6287.
Delor M, Archer S, Keane T, Meijer A, Sazanovich I, Greetham G, Towrie M, Weinstein J (2017).
Directing the path of light-induced electron transfer at a molecular fork using vibrational excitation
Nature Chemistry, vol. 9, pp. 1099-1104.
Delor M, Keane T, Scattergood P, Sazanovich I, Towrie M, Meijer A, Weinstein J (2015).
On the mechanism of vibrational control of light-induced charge transfer in donor–bridge–acceptor assemblies
Nature Chemistry, vol.17, pp. 689-695.
Delor M, Sazanovich I, Towrie M, Weinstein J (2015).
Probing and exploiting the interplay between nuclear and electronic motion in charge transfer processes
Accounts of Chemical Research, vol. 48, pp. 1131-1139.
Delor M, Scattergood P, Sazanovich I, Parker A, Greetham G, Meijer A, Towrie M, Weinstein J (2014).
Toward control of electron transfer in donor-acceptor molecules by bond-specific infrared excitation
Science, vol. 346, pp. 1492-1495.
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CONTACT
Columbia University
Department of Chemistry
3000 Broadway, 117 Havemeyer Hall
New York, NY 10027
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Office: 506 Havemeyer
Lab: 117 Havemeyer