From transistors to solar cells, light-emitting diodes to sensors, the unique optical, electronic and magnetic properties of molecular materials have been harnessed in a wide range of technologies. Alongside their application in devices, molecular electronic materials provide the ideal playground to explore fundamental physical phenomena. A plethora of new molecular designs has been met by a newfound ability to probe, understand and manipulate the quantum world.
This symposium will consider emerging molecular materials in which the quantum properties can be leveraged to improve device efficiency and sustainability. We will highlight how consideration of shape, symmetry and packing will play an important role in the next revolution of quantum devices. We will discuss the challenges facing our disciplines, and identify the future developments needed to advance the field. We will showcase how multi-disciplinary research that combines molecular design, synthesis, characterisation and theory is critical in the pursuit of molecular materials that benefit society.
- Materials for quantum technologies
- Structure-property relationships
- Metal ion incorporation
- Organometallic thin films and organic molecular crystals
- Spin and topology
Jess is an Imperial College Research Fellow investigating spin selective charge transport through chiral systems in the Department of Materials. She currently works in SPIN-Lab at Imperial, which is led by Professor Sandrine Heutz. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Fuchter group at Imperial College London, where she optimised these chiral systems such that can absorb/emit circularly polarised (CP) light for CP OLEDs and OPDs. For her PhD Jess concentrated on organic photovoltaics and the development of advanced characterisation techniques to better understand molecular packing under the supervision of Dr Ji-Seon Kim. Outside of the lab, Jess is involved with several science communication and outreach initiatives. She is committed to improving diversity in science, both online and offline, and since the start of 2018 has written the Wikipedia biographies of women and people of colour scientists every single day.
Jeanne Crassous studied at the “Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon” (ENS Lyon, France). In 1992, she passed the national exam “Concours de l’Agrégation de Sciences Physiques, option Chimie”. In1993, she obtained a DEA (“Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies”, Master degree) in Organic Chemistry from the University of Lyon 1. She received her PhD in 1996, prepared under the supervision of Prof. André collet (ENS Lyon, France), on the Absolute Configuration of Bromochlorofluoromethane (CHFClBr). After a one-year postdoctoral period studying the Chirality of Fullerenes in Prof. François Diederich’s group (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), she received a CNRS researcher position at the ENS Lyon in 1998 and then she joined the Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes (University of Rennes, France) in 2005. She became Director of Research in 2010.
Her group is dealing with many fields of chirality (metal-based helicene derivatives, chiral π-conjugated assemblies, fundamental aspects of chirality such as parity violation effects) and chiroptical activity (electronic and vibrational circular dichroism, circularly polarized luminescence) with potential applications in optoelectronics, spintronics and chirality-coded systems.
She is co-author of more than 170 articles and book chapters and has presented her work in more than 60 invited lectures and 65 seminars in laboratories. She is co-author/co-editor of two monographs: « Molécules Chirales : Stéréochimie et Propriétés », Editions du CNRS, 2006 and « Helicenes - Synthesis, Properties and Applications », Wiley, 2022.
She is currently coordinating a French national network (GDR CHIRAFUN, Chirality and multifunctionality) and a European ITN Project (HEL4CHIROLEDs, Helical molecules for Chiral OLEDs). She is also currently an elected member of the Executive Board of the DCO-SCF (Division of Organic Chemistry of the French Chemical Society) and member of the Editorial Boards of Chirality and ChemPhysChem (Wiley journals).
In 2013, she was elected distinguished junior member of the French Chemical Society (SCF). In 2020, she received the National Prize of the Organic Chemistry Division of the French Chemical Society (DCO-SCF). In 2021, she was elected Member of the European Academy of Science (EurASc) and Fellow of Chemistry Europe (Class 2020/2021). In 2023, she was awarded the CNRS Silver Medal in molecular chemistry (CNRS Talent).