Student Invited Lecture Series: Benjamin Lear

Despite the desire to exercise control with atomistic precision, chemical synthesis often employs a dramatic mismatch between tool and target. For instance, conventional heating relies on bulk energy transfer—using glassware centimeters in size to activate molecules nanometers in size—resulting in a dimensional disparity of seven orders of magnitude. In this seminar, I will discuss my group’s efforts to close this gap by generating and applying heat on the nanoscale. I will show that this localized energy can drive difficult organic and inorganic transformations at effective temperatures that would be impossible in bulk solution. We observe dramatic accelerations in reaction rates without sacrificing selectivity. Discussion will focus on the ramifications of this technique for polymer degradation, precision synthesis, and rapid ceramic formation.