Elena Meirzadeh

Developing a precise understanding of structure-function relationships in molecular crystals can allow us to generate a wide range of properties from extremely simple building blocks. In the first half of my talk, I will discuss how crystal engineering and defects affect the macroscopic properties of amino acid crystals. Moreover, I will describe the molecular-level determination of the structure of defect sites, which are below the diffraction detection limit, using pyroelectric measurement coupled with dispersion-corrected density functional theory calculations and molecular dynamics simulations.

In the second half of my talk, I will introduce a new two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon that we recently synthesized: graphullerene. The constituent fullerene subunits in these crystals are arranged hexagonally in a covalently interconnected molecular sheet that can be mechanically exfoliated and characterized. I will describe how the properties of graphullerene differ from those of graphene and molecular fullerenes.