Dany's Senior Research Project

Hello there everyone!

On Friday I came back from my second meeting with Dr. Zheng, a chemistry professor at the U of A. My research project is to assist Dr. Zheng in achieving his goal to create green display technology using organic compounds (called OLED, oganic light-emitting diode). His research is exciting and surprisingly understandable to anyone who's taken AP level chemistry.

Color, as we know it, is made up of the combination of red, green, and blue primary components. Dr. Zheng wishes to use rare earth elements (the bottom-most row of the periodic table) to create copy-cat red, green, and blue compounds usable in an electric-powered display. Each rare earth element has a certain color to it when excited by light or by electricity, but its efficiency varies with the ligands attached to the central molecule. As it stands, he currently has a very potent electroluminescent green compound, but different red and blue ligand configurations still need to be tested for their efficiency. That's where I come in: When I begin work in his lab, I will be given 5-6 red compounds that require synthesis. Scouring documentation and chemistry recipes, it will be my job to put the rare earth element and the different ligands together. After they are synthesized, I'll then need to run my newly created compounds through a computer to a) determine the quantum yield (efficiency) of each compound, and b) correlate experimental data with a computational model of molecular structure.

It is not yet known whether I will have the time to create blue compounds after testing a couple red ones. We shall know once I get well into work in the lab!

At the moment, I am waiting on lab safety instructions. Once that is studied and I pass the U of A's "quiz," I will begin work on synthesis as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, I'll hopefully work soon with Dr. Rene Corrales, who is the computer programmer responsible for putting together the theoretical model, as I may have an opportunity to code something for Dr. Zheng. Not sure yet, but I'm feeling optimistic about it!

The schedule is perfect for me: I will most likely be working three days a week in his lab, all in the morning. Personally, I like starting my day by working in the morning, so the timing couldn't be better.

Looking forward to reading your other research projects, seniors!

--Dany.