On November 30th of 2018, Prof. Yan Xia of Stanford University paid visit to the SKLEOC by in
the invitation of Prof. Chunming Cui. He gave a lecture entitled “Building and
Breaking Molecular Ladders to Develop Antiaromatic and Force-Responsive
Materials” at
the lecture hall of Shixian Building. The lecture was hosted by Prof. Chunming
Cui.
Prof. Xia’s research
group is devoted to the development of efficient synthetic methods for the
synthesis of strained compounds, especially cyclubutadiene structured
polycyclic aromatic compounds, and force responsive functional materials. In
his lecture, Prof. Xia first presented a palladium catalyzed cyclization
reaction between norbornadiene and aromatics that they developed. This reaction
enabled the assembly of microporous rigid polymers featuring antiaromatic
fragments and conjugated compounds. Prof. Xia then discussed a special type of
ladder polymers his team discovered. These
polymers are force responsive, under outer forces these polymers may undergo
the breaking and rearrangement of chemical bonds, forming polyethynes with
total conjugationin situ. The
synthesis of organic semi-conductors using outer force breaking of ladder
polymers has huge potential in basic scientific studies and applications in
material sciences. After the talk, the audience were engaged in having further
discussions with Prof. Xia.
Prof. Xia received his
bachelor degree from Peking University in 2002. He then received his master’s
degree from McMaster University in 2006, then obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2010
from Caltech under the supervision of Prof. Robert Grubbs and Julie Kornfield.
He then conducted further research at Dow and MIT. In 2013, he began his
independent research at Stanford University. His main research focus is the
design, synthesis and modification of organic materials and polymers via novel synthetic
methods and rational molecular designs.
