 Welcome. So good afternoon everyone. It's four o'clock. Let me just get started and welcome everyone to the provost lecture series and So we started the provost lecture series last October when I became the provost and for the past year We have hosted Seven speakers and just for those of you who are the first time here. Let me just quickly Provide an overview of the purpose of the provost lecture series And so this series is meant to provide an opportunity to celebrate milestones in the careers of faculty members, so this is only open to our faculty members and It covers a broad range of Kind of areas we want to celebrate so for for example people getting promoted Getting either tenured or promoted from assistant to associate or full professor and also for those Who are going to retire for example last year we celebrated? So two lectures each year old Maruyama and also old Scotland and who left OIST in the past 12 months and the last function is also we want to celebrate faculty members who received special awards and So today it's very special because as so Christine is going to give her is going to kick start our first provost lecture In the academic year So we we took a little break during this summer because many people are traveling and so starting today So we have several provost lectures lineup So before I stop I want to Share my deep gratitude to many people within OIST who made the lecture series possible so in particular to everyone working at the office of the provost and So so you have been working very hard to get Everything prepared getting the snacks and the cleanup afterwards. So thank you and also so many people from CPR who designed the posters and doing the videotaping and Writing to the stories and also core facilities So the engineering section leader Patrick Kennedy has been providing a lot of support Making plaques as really printed plaques for each picture frame So thanks to Patrick so for Starting September for the next About eight nine month. We might have ten lectures Line up. So the next one will be professor sase which is coming up very soon next week So today so Christine will give her lecture on making sense of the mess and which Today's lecture will be chaired by gale So some other upcoming Lectures and I was able to find a picture of Satoshi. I think that's the picture I discovered when when Satoshi first came to OIST Many years ago and yeah, bing chi will also give a lecture To celebrate His award from last year. So without further ado, I will hand this over to Gail You can see I'm being a very efficient chair because I've got Christine sorting out my slides Okay, well look, thank you all for joining us this afternoon It's a huge honor for me to be able to introduce Christine and to cheer Her lecture this afternoon in many respects Christine needs no introduction to any of you She's very well known to many of us in the faculty for her work on our behalf As our chair For the woman in the audience. She's been a hugely supportive and strong advocate for woman in science And for the OIST students She's she's been an exceptional teacher mentor and advocate for them So I kind of feel like really I could have just said, you know, here's Christine everybody But this afternoon, we're not here so much to to look at the many other things that Christine does But we're here to focus and celebrate her research In particular her award from the Society of Polymers Science, Japan This is a nonprofit organization which is mostly made up of Polymers scientists engineers and managers in academia and Its primary role is to contribute to the development of polymer science and technology in Japan and worldwide Now Christine is receiving this or received this award for her contributions to the synthesis of semiconductor polymers using Direct elation and catalyst transfer Polymerization not easy for someone who gave up their chemistry back in their first year of university And she's going to explain about this in her presentation this afternoon, which is entitled making sense of the mess Now this award is given to a researcher under the age of 45, which just made me jealous, you know Who's risk who's achieved original and outstanding research results in all areas of polymer science and who has recognized who have made particularly remarkable progress and research achievements But this is not the first and it's unlikely to be the last time that that Christine is honored for her scientific Contributions and this little just this map just shows Christine's academic as well as her physical journey around the world So Christine grew up in Kobe But she began her scientific journey at Cambridge University Where she completed a bachelor's degree in natural sciences and then she went on to complete her Her MSc and PhD in the Malval laboratory of polymer synthesis at Cambridge Following her PhD she completed postdoctoral studies on semi-conducting polymers for organic polyvoltax With Jean and I can't pronounce Jean's name John Frichet in the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley And this work was supported by the Lindemann Fellowship as well as Trinity College Junior Research Fellowship Then in 2006 She joined the materials and engineering department at the University of Washington as an assistant professor Where she became the Robert J. Campbell professor in 2017 and that was the position she held until 2001 when we were very fortunate to Persuade her To to join OIST so we've I think that was one of OIST's very fortunate Achievements, so Christine has also held positions in the Department of Chemistry at Washington Now Christine's research focuses on the synthesis of semi-conducting polymers for organic Electronics in the and in this area. She's published over a hundred papers She's currently on the editorial board of a number of journals So she contributes not just to us here at OIST, but she contributes to the larger scientific community So I'm gonna stop talking because actually you didn't come to listen to me today You actually came to listen to Christine So Christine we'd like to invite you now to make sense of the mess for us Thank you very much Okay, so can everyone hear me with the microphone? Okay? Thank you very much for the kind introduction and I was really impressed Gail that you could pronounce the chemistry terms So today we do quite a lot of work in my group But what I'll be doing is really just presenting about the work that led to the awards specifically about the synthesis of semi-conducting polymers using Catalyst transfer and direct hourly simplification So I'm hoping that even though you're not experts in the field that by the end of this talk you'll know what those terms mean Gail said I didn't need introduction, but I actually assumed that you wouldn't know me So for my introductory slides I do have some information about me, but I'm really pitching this bit to the students and researchers in this field To provide some context about maybe possible career development for you as well So first of all, I guess some background about me. I am mixed-raced half Japanese half British And so from like when when I was born I was used to juggling cultures in Japan and England And also deaf languages as well so juggling both languages In terms of the degrees, sir, all my degrees are in chemistry And I've highlighted the fact that I moved to material science and engineering as a faculty And I guess for most of you in the audience that probably doesn't seem much of a change like even a voice when we're doing a search We lump chemistry and material science together, but actually they're not the same at all In fact, even Keshav Dhani said actually I associate material science with physics a lot more than chemistry and that's actually very true But for me that was a big transition I was working in a science department predominantly and then I moved to an engineering department and Between those two departments people approach scientific questions very differently other things were just Words that were used like when talking about the same concept people would actually use different words So from a professional point of view, I also got used to juggling languages as well So throughout my life, I guess I've been kind of bridging barriers as it were and That's really what attracted me to come to oyster in 2021 To try and work in this into this one re environment and try to contribute globally from that point of view Along the way, I have held a number of other positions as well And this is what I was referring to for the students and researchers So I was in charge of some PhD programs. I actually did a huge amount of education and outreach work So trying to get minoritized students to come to do research at the University of Washington But also bringing high school students who were from low-income families to come and do research So I did a lot of work in that area as well And then as Gail mentioned, I've had some appointments for journals as well And I just want to point out these things To the students just to highlight that I know at oyster always seems like there's only research that can be done by faculty But actually that's not true There's lots of other things that you can do in academia and so when you're thinking about your career path I hope you'll just consider the fact that in academia There are multiple options as well Finally just before I came I was the chair of the department and The chair of the department actually does everything. They manage the finance. They're the HR person for the department They're ultimately in charge of the undergraduate graduate master's and PhD programs We hire faculty we negotiate with the faculty and so we really did everything So based on that experience now When I I thought oh chair of the faculty that I can do that in my sleep But actually it's been one of the hardest things I've ever done And someone said that it's really like being the herder of please. They're sorry faculty, but But sometimes they really had something like that And I now currently am an associate editor for another journal macro molecules, which is like the main journal for polymer chemistry and On and also, I'm currently the president of the IU pack polymer division So whenever there's a new element name announced there'll be a big announcement and the people who make that big announcement Is IU packs there they're in charge of developing standards and the monk chair and terminology for chemistry So right now I'm the president of the polymer division and it's been really really great fun It's like the United Nations, but for chemistry and so once a year we get together There's people from literally all over the world and it's been really fascinating to get these people together and work towards this common goal of Making chemistry more understandable out to the world So on that note, I'm gonna Know actually I have one final thing that I should have mentioned Last but most importantly I'm a parent to two kids. My husband is here And without them I would not be able to do all that I do and my husband said I should mention some hobbies My main hobby is sleep not that I get enough of it I do not get enough of it and I put things in brackets Things I used to do and aspire to do at some point in the future So I do need to get my work life balance in order at some point On that note I transitioned to the research First and foremost, I really need to thank my current group members But also all my past group members because everything I'll be talking about today I did not do a single experiment in any of the things that I'll talk about today So thank you to everyone for their contributions So in order to really try and explain Semiconducting polymer synthesis a catalyst French for and dairy tarnation I do want to give an intro about material science. So I'll start with that sir material science one or one It's a completely underrepresented field at waste. So what is material science and engineering? So at its most simplistic level, it's really a study that involves trying to look at the Relationship between the structure of your material. So this would be the atomic structure and Correlating that structure to the properties of the material The structure can be altered through the processing And connecting all of that to ultimately an application that you have in mind So we'll always be looking at the performance of the materials in different applications as well and Material science really has been key to Technological developments throughout the years. So in order to emphasize that There are actually eras in the past that have been named after the primary Material that was in use at the time So the first one was at the Stone Age back in 3000 BC The stone stone was the primary material that was used as the Stone Age Any guesses for what came after the Stone Age? Bronze I heard bronze. Yeah, so the next one is Bronze Age And again, it was called the Bronze Age because that was the primary material that was used It's a metal. You need higher temperatures to process it People had figured out how to use fire then. So it was bronze. What was next? Yeah, Iron Age so iron higher melting point metal You need higher temperatures to be able to process it so it came later But because it is a higher melting temperature material, it's significantly stronger and therefore much more applicable So some people would say that it's still the Iron Age It's still a very widely used material But others would argue that it's now the plastic age or the silicon age at the moment But regardless without new materials development, we do not have advances in technology So at least from my personal point of view, it's really important to have a material science as a discipline So when we talk about materials as a material scientist, we categorize them into four different areas So one is metals. I think that's pretty obvious The other is ceramics and the one that I'll really be talking about today, which is my area of expertise is polymers I mentioned that there were four so the fourth one actually is a combination of any of the two and you get a composite So whenever we find that we can't get the properties that we need using a single material Then we make a composite combining more than two of them So Polymers I actually became really interested in polymers as early as a high school student So we polymers literally are everywhere. This is a polymer the table is a polymer Everything that you use or touch on a daily basis is a made of a polymer and that was something that really fascinated me and Especially right now a polymers have a bit of a bad name has plastics microplastics That's what you hear in the media a lot, but actually even we are made of polymers. So DNA proteins Those are in fact types of polymers and a lot of polymers are used for biological applications as well So for example tissue engineering and drug delivery So what makes polymers are a little bit difficult and this is where the mess comes into play They are really very very distinct from the other materials and So metals and ceramics, they are not a mess. They're really easy to I shouldn't There aren't any metallurgists in here. So it's okay But metals and ceramics are very very easy to study and the reason for that is that they have very well-defined periodic structures They have what we call a crystal structure and a unit cell So we know where the atoms are and if we know what the unit cell looks like we know what the rest of the material looks like They have long-range order and they have a very clear chemical formula. So if you have a Chunk of soul even regardless where if where I probe I can say that the chemical formula of that is NAC all in it doesn't change So all of this makes it easy to characterize. It's easy to see what you have using a variety of characterization techniques Admittedly they are not without fault in a lot of the crystal structures have what we call defects in them So sometimes you'll have atoms missing. There might be a small atom impurity in there So it'll kind of fit in the gap Sometimes a bigger atom will replace an entire atom. So you can have defects Sometimes you'll even have a row of atoms missing from the crystal structure But even those we can see we know what they are and it's easy to characterize and Actually in most applications we want to have those defects because they do things like strengthen the material So when you're going shopping for jewelry, you would never really buy 24 karat gold unless it's for special occasions Because it's pure it's soft. It scratches easily. So normally we would actually buy something else. That's been intentionally derped Because it's a little bit more robust other doping examples for example Things like silicon so silicon pure silicon at room temperature shows not very much conductivity at all So here again, we introduce defects intentionally So that we have some form of room temperature Conductivity and make it as a usable material But just to summarize what I said in the past two slides metals and ceramics. They are based on on crystal structures They're easy to study and so therefore they're not particularly messy systems But now this where is where the polymers come to play a polymers in contrast. They're a very very very big mess sir If you have a polymer sample within the polymer sample, you'll just have chains with different lens All of them will be different lens Other things like just have simplicity will draw polymers to be linear so a straight line So we'll kind of draw it like this, but in fact, it's rarely like that It's actually sometimes branch so things will be going off Sometimes the branch will be connecting to the other chain. So we'll have things called crosslinking taking place So we'll have things like that But also from a defect point of view, so if you could imagine that these are Molecules all connected together Sometimes when we make them polymer things go wrong. Well, things always go wrong And so we accidentally introduce a monomer in there that we didn't mean to But here again, we can't characterize them. So for example this batch right here There are three defects between three polymer chains But we cannot distinguish it from this one which also has three defects along three chains So here in fact, you have two perfect polymers and one defected polymer chain but we can't distinguish between those two and That's because whenever we characterize these because of the mess we can only characterize the average of the material So whenever we're talking about molecular weights of polymers, we only ever talk about average molecular weights We can't give a precise molecular way the same with the chemical formula again out of simplicity will say oh Polyacylene is C2H4 that's that's that's what we'll say, but actually it's not really that Other things like when we're talking about defects again, we can only talk about averages So there's a lot of issues with just characterizing a polymer at all So these are the problems that we have when just considering a single polymer chain But of course when we're using it as a material the material isn't just a single polymer chain It's a collection of them and so when we collect them things are complicated again So most metals and ceramics, it's just a crystal But in the case of polymers, they're what are called semi crystalline materials for the most part I am simplifying but then for the most part they're what is one or known as semi crystalline materials So you have this crystalline domain and then you have these amorphous domains And these crystalline domains again, we can characterize using similar methods that are used in metals and ceramics We can use a variety of x-ray or electron diffraction techniques But then when it comes to the amorphous mess, which is just all these squiggly lines that we do we cannot characterize it And so for the most part we just really do forget about it. We pretend that it doesn't exist And to be honest for most applications, that's okay So if you think about polymers for a plastic bag like polyethylene We don't really need to care too much about that amorphous mess but then The special type of polymer that my group works on is that we specialize on polymers for electronics Applications and when it comes to electronics, we can't be surblase We actually need to be quite a bit more precise in order to get high performance materials So we can no longer really ignore the defects. We can't really ignore the amorphous domains We need to start to be able to control theirs and so The question then becomes well, how do we deal with that messy system that we have? So there's two approaches that what could take about this One is to really keep on developing those Characterization tools so that we can start to really tease out the details of all that's happening And there are most definitely people who are doing that But ultimately there are limitations in the resolution or the accuracy of the characterization that one can do So then the other approaches well Let's start making polymers that don't have the defects in the first place So make more well-defined materials that do have the defects in the polymer chain and Try to make polymers which all have the same lens and the same molecular weight And this is really where our work comes into play So with all of that backdrop One of the big goals in my group has been well Can we design and synthesize semi conducting polymers with the level of precision that nature can So nature has absolute control over the synthesis of its polymers So if you think about DNA or think about proteins the molecular weights are absolute There is no molecular weight distribution all of them have the same length and If you think about DNA and proteins again, you have sequence specificity in the monomers So the question was well, can we try to do that with semi conducting polymers as well But mimicking nature is actually really quite slow and TDS and it's really quite expensive as well So the other question was well, can we do so efficiently in a much more environmentally benign manner? And this is what led us to the SPSJ the Polymer science society award which was for the development of synthesis of semi conducting polymers Using direct dilation and catalyst transfer polymerization so With that introduction and don't worry. I'm not talking for that long. I'm not I'll stop soon What I do want to try and actually do is explain to you what Hopefully since this of semi conducting polymers that bit makes sense. Hopefully. Yes Okay, good But what I'll be doing for the rest of the talk is how Direct dilation and catalyst transfer come into play in order to achieve those sir, I Don't want to scare you with chemical structures, but here are some chemical structures Here are some examples of polymers that are used in electronics applications and Some are simple. So this one's a pretty simple example But as you can see progressively they get more and more complicated and these complicated ones have amazing performance like these polymers can match the performance of silicon now and It's really the complexity of the structure that allows us to complete compete favorably with the inorganic semiconductors You don't need to worry too much about the details of the actual structure But one of the things that I want to point out is there's one feature that every single one of them have in common Which is that they're all what we call conjugated polymers, which is that they are a string of rings So here's a ring a ring. So it's all and other ones Ring ring ring So if you could imagine that in order to get electronic conductivity what we need to do is to String together all these rings in the linear manner, then we will get electronic conductivity out of the material So in terms of developing better ways to polymerize, that's what we really focus on. How do we connect all those rings together? And so schematically, this is really what we do We have two rings that we connect But then if you imagine a ring, there's multiple points that it could connect So how do you specify where and where it connects and how do you make sure that all the connections are linear? Like we don't want any kinks. We don't want any branches forming So how do we make sure that you're only really making a linear chain and the way that we do this in chemistry is By introducing what we call functional groups So these are designed such that They don't react with one another. In other words, we avoid what we call homocoupling They only react with each other So by judicial positioning of these functional groups, we can get this what we call cross-coupling to occur And that's what how we get the rings connecting linearly My animation's gone funky, but that's okay and Just having functional groups isn't enough to get that reaction to go We need to have get it give it an additional oomph to get that reaction to go so we in order to do that we introduced a catalyst and Again, you can ignore the details of this but the catalyst comes in Connects the rings together and it spits the connected rings out and the catalyst does that over and over again and by doing it over and over again you get that linear polymer forming and Normally if you do this you'll see that the catalyst is completely unbound To the product and when it's unbound This catalyst can then just it just if you imagine it's it's really just a mixture of all these reagents Everything is swimming around in a solution So how it reacts is just a matter of probability when it crashes into each other So when they're unbound, this is completely uncontrolled and the coupling can be taking place anywhere in your reaction flask and So here even though we've installed functional groups to make it linear We don't have any control over the molecular weight the length of the polymer And so the trick that we do and this is what catalyst transfer is We somehow bind the catalyst to the growing chain So one ring connects the catalyst is bound Imagine that a blue I should have animated this sorry another blue one comes in it binds and when it does the catalyst jump server Another one comes in the catalyst jump server So we have this catalyst walking and it's this process that's known as the catalyst transfer and By having this catalyst transfer or catalyst walk what we enable it to do is We make sure that only one monomer gets added one at a time to this growing polymer chain And so we start to be able to achieve much better control over the actual polymer synthesis And this is what enables us to make a much more well-defined polymers than we were previously able to So I felt that I had to show some actual real results. So here is a results line This is from quite a way back But this was a breakthrough result for us where we successfully managed to do a really really highly controlled synthesis of a semiconducting polymer The molecular weights are well-defined The molecular weight distribution is extremely narrow It's completely defect-free So at the time that we published this work This course wanted to a report of a polymer with the least amount of defects that had been reported at the time And so What's great about it? By virtue of having less defects our polymers are more crystalline and this is what this bigger shoulder is showing other things as well so in polymers and groups are considered to be defects and If you look at this picture, hopefully that will make sense So if this is my polymer chain if there's an end group that's really like cutting short your wire So if you cut your wire, you won't have any electronic conduction. So having an end group in the middle of a crystal Does prevent electronic conduction from occurring So by doing our synthesis, we're really able to control what kind of end group we have And be able to minimize the bad effects that an end group can have in your material But even better what we can do by controlling the length is completely avoid having the end groups in the middle So we can synthesize polymers that are exactly the length of the crystal or Exactly double the length of the crystal and by doing that we make sure that the end groups are only on the sides and Here in the middle is defect-free And by doing so we get much higher performance out of our materials So that's kind of the catalyst transfer aspect of the work So the other portion was direct our relation And again here again I'm showing that same slide that I had with the examples of semiconductor polymers And again just as a reminder our goal is just to connect those rings and so And looking at These more complicated polymers To make them it's an amazingly tedious process. So I'm just showing you this example here We didn't name it somebody else named it, but it's a polymer known as D18 D18 Performs amazingly well in solar cells. So in frittable tex It gives solar cell efficiency of 18% and if you consider commercial silicon devices that are 25% This is a really pretty amazing polymer, but if you see it's just 15 steps and what that means From our point of view that's two or three months worth of work in order to get that single polymer It's a huge amount of work So just trying to simplify that process and trying to minimize the number of steps We have to do would be hugely beneficial in commercializing organic electronics more So I've already introduced to you the more traditional way that we make it make the polymers We intentionally install functional groups and that really dictates How your polymers are synthesized But in direct our relation what we do is that one of the monomers we make Unfunctionalized so now We don't have anything directing the reaction But the goal is still to be able to synthesize a polymer despite the fact that we don't have anything on this particular monomer so From a efficiency point of view being able to do this is really great Going from here to this functionalized monomer requires a few steps So if we don't have to do those few steps, it simplifies everything But also usually these things that I've circled in purple. They're really toxic chemicals so if we can avoid those toxic chemicals too, that would be hugely beneficial and So this reaction right here where we have one functionalized monomer and one just with hydrogens This reaction is known as direct our relation. So our relation is connecting rings Direct is because while we do it directly. So that's what the term is But if you think about it, well, if there's nothing directing the reaction Then how do we still ensure that it's still a linear chain and how do we get it to go? To cut a long story short We did achieve an example of this Where not only we managed to control the reaction of a carbon hydrogen bond But we also can control the molecular weight So not only were we able to develop a reaction that allows for defect tree polymer synthesis We can also do it in a slightly more environmentally benign manner in a slightly more efficient way So that's that it's our relation person and gales looking boards No, I just I just have three slides left. Yeah, yeah, thank you So moving on Related to this. I just want to give you a brief glimpse of our latest achievement from last year Which is sir, this is great One functionalized monomer one unfunctionalized But what would actually be even more powerful from a synthesis point of view is this how do you react to? completely unfunctionalized monomers and be able to make that polymer that way And as I mentioned last year we published a paper That was for us at least a really big breakthrough where we were able to Further the understanding of a particular system And I weren't going to detail now But I just did want to highlight that kind of the further achievements that we have related to this area so We do perform other research. That's a lot more application oriented I did not present that at all, but we do do some application oriented work So I'll work on trying to get more awards than that can present to you again So we do do that But I hope at the end I hope that you have a better understanding of what catalyst transfer and what direct dilation mean Hands up if you understand a little bit more Leran stopped putting his hand up But anyway But by having these synthetic techniques bit by bit we are untangling the mess related to polymers So we collaborate a lot with other people trying to tease out the details Trying to understand what affects fundamental properties of polymers Other concluding notes as I mentioned I made a big jump from chemistry to material science and at the time it was pretty terrifying Despite the fact that my colleagues hired me They kept on complaining. Oh, you don't do material science. You need to do more material science So I was kind of a little bit left out and also teaching I hadn't taken a single material science class ever in my life But all of a sudden I was standing in front of a hundred students teaching material science So it was a pretty terrifying experience But overall in conclusion it was definitely a good growth for me So I just say that it's good to be outside of your comfort zone within reason But finally a collaboration between disciplines allows us to answer questions that we couldn't answer before So like the things that I talked about today I would have never considered pursuing if it wasn't for the fact that I had been introduced to a new discipline and Finally it really does take a village for everything to get everything done So I want to thank my research group my family But also the entire voice community for providing support to do our research So, thank you. Oh, I thought I had a thank you slide, but thank you We have time for some questions And because you know all experts in this thanks to Christian's future Thank you. So I do feel like slightly more an expert now than I was before which was just absolute zero in the field of polymer science So thank you just a really general question. What does the pie in your? Yeah I used to be in the chemistry in high school, so it's quite nice to see for chemical compounds again I Was wondering about these semiconductors Obviously, there are crystal and some in the center conductors like silicon It seems from the thing we were presenting that you are trying to make the polymers more like crystals And I'm wondering if that what is the advantage of using polymers