The interdisciplinary research conducted in our laboratory aims to explore novel physical and chemical functions of organic molecules in solid state with tools of organic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry and device fabrication. Our current research focuses on the following aspects:

 

Research

Miao Research Group, Department of Chemistry, CUHK

Copyright@ Miao’s Group, Department of Chemistry, the Chinese University of Hong Kong

2. Organic reactions in restrained space of molecular crystal lattice.

Organic reactions occurring in molecular crystals may show different reactivities than the conventional ones in solution because the molecular conformations and arrangements are restrained in the crystal lattice. With tools of organic synthesis and crystal engineering, we tune the molecular structures and molecular packing to achieve products with structures and reaction selectivities that can not be realized by conventional reactions in solution

1. Electronic and optoelectronic applications of organic semiconductors

We design and synthesize novel organic semiconductors, control molecular assembly in solid state, fabricate organic electronic devices and characterize device performance to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between structures and functions.

3. Covalent organic frameworks for separation and sensing applications

The design and synthesis of 2D or 3D crystalline organic frameworks in which the organic building blocks are linked by strong covalent bonds are still at an early stage. The successful realization of these covalent frameworks would provide lightweight materials optimized for important applications, such as gas storage, sensing and catalysis. We are exploring chiral and fluorescent molecular building blocks to achieve covalent frameworks for optical separation and sensing applications.

Regio-specific photooxidation occurring in crystals

Org. Lett. 2008, 10, 2007-2010

Phototransistors from a conjugated macrocycle molecule

Chem. Commun. 2008, 4324–4326