Professor Ki Tae Nam

Chiral Plasmonic Gold Nanoparticle

Abstract:
From small molecules to entire organisms, evolution has refined biological structures at the nanoscale, microscale and macroscale to be chiral—that is, mirror dissymmetric. Chiral nanoscale materials can be designed that mimic, refine and advance biological chiral geometries, to engineer optical, physical and chemical properties for applications in photonics, sensing, catalysis and biomedicine. The idea that inorganic materials can be chiral seems to be counterintuitive. In this talk, I will discuss about a new mechanism that
can generate chiral nanomaterials based on the interaction between chiral peptides and high index plane of metal surface. The enantioselective interaction of chiral molecules and high-Miller-index facets can break the mirror symmetry of the metal nanocrystals. I will also discuss about interesting optical properties of these chiral gold plasmonic nanoparticles that was synthesized by the peptides and amino acid. The resulting 432
symmetric chiral morphology result in the highest dissymmetry factor (g) and the efficient coupling with other materials. I believe that this synthetic approach for the chirality control of inorganic nanomaterials can have a lot of potential to maximize the light-matter interaction, resulting in many optical, electronic and biological applications.
Bio:
Professor Ki Tae Nam received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Seoul National University (SNU), and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, where he was awarded the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award. His doctoral research on “virus-based batteries” was a pioneering contribution, marking the first demonstration of virus-based electrochemical devices. Following his Ph.D., he conducted postdoctoral research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2007–2010), where he investigated peptide-mimetic polymers for the assembly of two-dimensional structures. Since joining the faculty at Seoul National University in 2010, Prof. Nam’s research group has continued to lead in the field of bioinspired materials science, focusing on the development of novel functional materials for energy and optical applications. Notable recent advances include:
● CO2 utilization chemistry (Nature Energy 2021, Nature Synthesis 2024)
● Peptide-based synthesis of chiral nanomaterials (Nature 2018, 2022; Nature Materials 2024)
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to science and engineering, Prof. Nam received the POSCO Chung-Am Award in 2022—one of the most prestigious honors in Korea.