性视界传媒

Emerging 鈥榥ew frontier鈥 of nanoscience and technology garners 性视界传媒 faculty researcher U.S. DOE early career award

Emerging 鈥榥ew frontier鈥 of nanoscience and technology garners 性视界传媒 faculty researcher U.S. DOE early career award

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

Studio portrait of Kun Wang
Kun Wang (Photo by Beth Wynn)

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擜 new Mississippi 性视界传媒 University faculty member is the recipient of $750,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Early Career Research 性视界传媒.

The early career awards are part of DOE鈥檚 longstanding efforts to support critical research at the nation鈥檚 universities and national labs, grow a skilled STEM workforce, and cement America as a global leader in science and innovation. The program, now in its 12th, supports scientists as they begin formative work in the agency鈥檚 priority research areas.

Kun Wang, an assistant professor with joint 性视界传媒 appointments in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Chemistry, is one of 51 university-employed scientists from the U.S. to receive DOE early career awards for 鈥渕ission-critical鈥 research.

鈥淢aintaining our nation鈥檚 braintrust of world-class scientists and researchers is one of DOE鈥檚 top priorities鈥攁nd that means we need to give them the resources they need to succeed early on in their careers,鈥 said聽Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. 鈥淭hese awardees show exceptional potential to help us tackle America鈥檚 toughest challenges and secure our economic competitiveness for decades to come.鈥

Wang鈥檚 project, 鈥淧robing and Understanding the Spatial and Energy Distributions of Plasmonic Hot Carriers via Single-Molecule Quantum Transport,鈥 funded for five years, seeks to explore the new frontier of nanoscience and technology鈥攁 鈥渃hallenge,鈥 Wang said, because until now most research has relied only on theoretical simulations.

Mark A. Novotny, professor and head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said Wang鈥檚 work could enhance future technologies for smart devices and solar cells, making them more functional and energy efficient.

聽鈥淲atch an old movie from the 1940s鈥1960s, paying attention to phone technology. Now look at your smartphone, and think about the small and complicated electronics required for it to work.聽Dr. Wang鈥檚 research will experimentally study electronic and optical properties of single molecules, in particular the spatial and energy distributions associated with the electron transport within a molecule.鈥

Wang hopes his research 鈥渨ill transform the way we harvest solar energy, drive chemical reactions and detect light.鈥 He plans to develop an experimental approach to systematically probe the energy and spatial distributions of plasmonic hot carriers and interrogate how they are affected by different external stimuli.

鈥淲hat is really amazing about plasmonic hot carriers is they can make the impossible things possible鈥攅specially in many energy-related processes,鈥 Wang said. 鈥淭hey can significantly lower the potential barrier for certain chemical reactions, making them much faster; they can improve the efficiency of solar-energy cells; and they can enable light-detection without the limitation of semiconductor bandgap.鈥

Dennis W. Smith Jr., professor and head of the Department of Chemistry, said, 鈥淲hile navigating the first joint appointment in chemistry and physics and astronomy, and in spite of the rigors of a first semester teaching and building a laboratory鈥攁nd a pandemic鈥攕uccess and national recognition has arrived.

鈥淭his bold work represents the best chance I know to actually 鈥榗reate foundational knowledge,鈥 as Dr. Wang describes in his DOE abstract,鈥 Smith said. 鈥淲ith fearless determination, he has designed single molecule circuit experiments and built an amazing custom zero vibration operating that has already given us the first images of atoms at 性视界传媒.鈥澛

A native of China, Wang completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan before joining 性视界传媒鈥檚 faculty in 2020. Wang received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Georgia and his bachelor鈥檚 degree in physics and microelectronics from Shandong University in Jinan, China.

Part of 性视界传媒鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Physics and Astronomy is available at and the Department of Chemistry is available at .

性视界传媒 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .