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This Behind the Scenes clause was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation .
Elizabeth Harbron is describing a bit of choreography .
Conjugated polymers don’t come in all colors of the rainbow, yet. The idea is to get the chemicals to change color and/or intensity when excited by light (left) or electric current.
" There are two groups and they start out like this , fine ? " she say , properly arm out , bent at the elbow , with forearm erect . Her left over arm also is extended , forearm dangling . Both wrists are crumpled and her fingerbreadth are gently curled .
" And in the light , they do this , " she nods , sharply drawing her right branch across her body and coiling herself up slightly . " Then … they go back . "
Harbron , a photochemist at the College of William and Mary , is talk about the dancing of molecules , not people . She is demonstrating how a grouping of polymer change embodiment when touch off by light , using her coat of arms to demonstrate the legal action of azobenzene side strand coiling and uncoil around a key molecular gumption . The chemically literate will recognize that she is playact out the process of Commonwealth of Independent States - trans isomerism .
Her labis investigating the properties of conjugated polymers , long - mountain chain molecules that can be made to beam , even change colors , when they exchange from cis to trans . The fluorescent property of conjugate polymers can be activated by light or by electric charge , which makes them good campaigner for a new course of study of commercial - Cartesian product presentation screens based on polymer brightness level - emitting rectifying valve ( PLED ) technology .
Conjugated polymer give a phone number of advantage to displays . Their fluorescent properties make for skillful burnished , gamy - contrast read-out . This means that future jail cell phones equipped with PLED displays wo n’t require backlighting . PLED engineering is especially appeal for computer monitors . Think of your laptop computer screen offering 180 - degree visibleness , even in the sunlight .
" Because this is a polymer , it ’s charge plate , right-hand ? In theory , you could make these flexible . So you could imagine some sort of flexible computer monitor , " she order . " The technology just is n’t there yet , but that ’s where it ’s headed . "
Some European consumer product , electric cell phones — even an electric razor — already use conjugated - polymer displays , Harbron said . But canonical science always comes before mobile phone speech sound and laptops and other consumer products .
" We ’re not going to be making cell phones here in my science lab , " she said . " My group will never be gismo manufacturer , but we ’re going to learn more and more things about what these polymers can be made to do . What we do may some day help the widget makers . "
Harbron ’s piece of work is based on coming up with new conjugated polymer that have groups attach to them that answer to swooning signals . " conjugate polymers will fluoresce if you put electrical energy through them , but we ’ve focused on visible light because it ’s very straightforward and an gentle thing to do , " she said . The group of polymer being inquire will fluoresce otherwise — bright or a dissimilar color — bet on how they are shaped . Her work choreographing azobenzenes , for case , has reveal that they respond differently to ultraviolet light than they do to blue lighter .
" If you made them coil up , they would shine a different color than when they ’re all spread out , " she explained . " So I thought would n’t it be nerveless if we could force them to do that with a light signal ? Just say ' do it now ' and ' now go backwards ' . "
She characterise her lab ’s work withazobenzenesas " find out what we could do . " They discovered , for instance , techniques for changing the color of a conjugate - polymer result , make water the melted alteration from yellow - orange to green and back again . She also has developed an approach to fluorescence modulation — a mode to make the polymer burn brighter and dimmer .
" Once you’re able to let the cat out of the bag to the azobenzenes and figure out how to make them brighter and dimmer , you ask , ' OK . Now , can we go totally on , wholly off , just with a light sign ? ' " she call for . " And that ’s one of the places we ’re headed . "
Basic investigation of the property of any conjugated polymer begin in root , as it ’s easier to observe and record enactment , but shape on promise molecule must quickly shape up to the film state .
" Because plastic film ’s where it ’s at , ” Harbron said . commercial-grade conjugated - polymer app would lie of a layered display screen , with the polymer suspended in a thin liquid film sandwiched among conductive layers to provide electrical energy and isolate layers to keep O from the polymer . " Anytime anyone reviews one of my papers , they ’ll say , ' Well this is all really large and everything , but how does it work on in the film ? ' "
Harbron ’s group recently publish its first " film " paper , identify how some of the actions demonstrated by azobenzenes in solution happen in almost the same agency in a film some 100 microns stocky .
" We did not make love if there would be enough room in the film for the molecule to coil and uncoil , " she tell , " but it turns out that there is . "
ACAREER grantfrom the National Science Foundation will take into account Harbron and her troupe of undergraduate pill pusher to advance to the next level , include the hobby of groups beyond azobenzenes . " We want to take the effects we have and seek to make them secure , by trade out the azobenzenes with other kind of photoactive molecule , " she order . " The one we ’re expect at now is called spiropyran . "
For a photochemist , the difference between azobenzene and spiropyran is the difference between choreographing four - limbed and ten - limbed dancer . Spiropyran is a more complex molecule than azobenzene , Harbron explain , and therefore offer more property that could be made to change in reaction to short or electrical stimuli .
" That may help us accomplish the full intensity - on / intensity - off result that we ’re search for , " she say . " It also may facilitate us do some fancy and more spectacular colour - modification applications . "
