Siamak Shokri, Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, won a Best Poster Award at the 27th Inter-American Photochemical Society Meeting in Sarasota, Florida, January 2-5. His adviser is Jean-Luc Ayitou, assistant professor of chemistry.
Shokri won for his poster “Synthesis, Optoelectronic Properties and Excited State Dynamics of Baird-type Antiaromatic Thio- and Oxo-Naphthoquinodimethanes.” Naphthoquinodimethanes (QDM) are novel light-harvesting polycyclic molecular scaffolds, which have recently been synthesized in Ayitou’s lab.

Ayitou’s lab blends conventional organic synthesis techniques and photophysical and photochemical paradigms to devise alternatives and complementary approaches for energy applications, organic materials, and sustainable chemical synthesis. The group’s primary focus is energy transfer in organic crystalline materials. Specifically, they are investigating the diffusion and annihilation of excitons that originate from organic chromophores, which are known to form crystalline solids under ambient conditions.

The group also hopes to make use of the organic chromophores of interest to devise organic electronic devices, and to explore novel 2D frameworks for various applications such as light induced micro-patterning. In addition, Ayitou and his team are interested in synthetic organic photochemistry and photocatalysis with an emphasis on green and sustainable reaction conditions.

From left: Shokri, Ayitou, and Manoj Kumar Manna