Podcasts about plasmonics

Today's guest is Trevor Best, CEO and Co-founder at Syzygy Plasmonics. Syzygy is rethinking how chemicals are produced and pioneering a new technology that energizes chemical reactions via light. Their photocatalyst technology came out of the lab at Rice University. Toward the end of 2022, the company announced a $76 million Series C financing led by Carbon Direct Capital and a number of significant strategies in the energy, oil and gas, and automotive sectors.During the episode, Trevor and Cody delve into various topics, including Trevor's background, traditional petrochemical methods of chemical production, and the fortuitous discovery that led him and his co-founder to commercialize their cutting-edge technology at Syzygy. The discussion also covers the various chemical pathways that Syzygy is currently pursuing, such as zero-emissions hydrogen, low-emissions hydrogen, syngas, and methanol.In this episode, we cover: [2:46] Trevor's background and Syzygy's origin story [7:37] The relationship between fossil fuels and the chemical industry [9:48] Other emerging alternatives in the space[11:39] Origins of Syzygy's photochemistry technology and its implications [20:59] Syzygy's decision to focus on hydrogen pathways [24:32] An overview of dry reforming [27:40] The company's business model [30:14] Sygyzy's scale-up progress and plans for the future[36:47] How Syzygy balances adding new capabilities to its reactors [42:09] Trevor's thoughts on the future and where Syzygy needs helpGet connected: Cody SimmsTrevor Best / SyzygyMCJ Podcast / Collective*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.Episode recorded on March 6, 2023. 

Chad Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and the George B. Rathmann Prof. of Chemistry, Prof. of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Prof. of Biomedical Engineering, Prof. of Materials Science & Engineering, and Prof. of Medicine at Northwestern University.He is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes, the invention of Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) and related cantilever-free nanopatterning methodologies, On-Wire Lithography (OWL), Co-Axial Lithography (COAL), and contributions to supramolecular chemistry and nanoparticle synthesis. He is the author of over 850 manuscripts and over 1,200 patent applications worldwide (over 400 issued), and the founder of multiple companies, including Nanosphere, AuraSense, TERA-print, Azul 3D, MattIQ, and Flashpoint Therapeutics.Mirkin has been recognized for his accomplishments with over 250 national and international awards. These include the King Faisal Prize in Science, the Faraday Medal, UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in Life Sciences, Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine, the SCI Perkin Medal, Friendship Award, Nano Research Award, AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Award, Richards Award and Medal, Harrison Howe Award, the Remsen Award, Ralph N. Adams Award, the Dickson Prize in Science, the RUSNANOPRIZE, the Nichols Medal, the 2016 Dan David Prize, the inaugural NAS Sackler Prize in Convergence Research, the RSC Centenary Prize, the Friends of the National Library of Medicine Distinguished Medical Science Award, the 2014 National Security Science and Engineering Fellowship (NSSEFF) Award, the 2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher (2002-2012), the ACS Nano Lectureship Award for the Americas, the Vittorio deNora Award (The Electrochemical Society), the Linus Pauling Medal, the Thomson Reuters “Nobel-Class” Citation Laureate, RSC's “Chemistry World” Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a Honorary Membership in the Materials Research Society of India, the Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, an Honorary Degree from Nanyang Technological Univ. Singapore, recognition as the Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor to Singapore, an Honorary Professorship from Hunan Univ. China, the ACS Award for Creative Invention, the Herman S. Bloch Award for Scientific Excellence in Industry, an Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Edward Mack Jr. Memorial Award, the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Havinga Medal, the Gustavus John Esselen Award, the Biomedical Eng. Society's Distinguished Achievement Award, a DoD NSSEFF Award, the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, the ACS Inorganic Nanoscience Award, the iCON Innovator of the Year Award, a NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Collegiate Inventors Award, an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Dickinson College, the Pennsylvania State Univ. Outstanding Science Alumni Award, the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, a Dickinson College Metzger-Conway Fellowship, the 2003 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award, Crain's Chicago Business “40 under 40 Award,” the Discover 2000 Award for Technological Innovation, I-Street Magazine's Top 5 List for Leading Academics in Technology, the Materials Research Society Young Investigator Award, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the PLU Fresenius Award, the Harvard University E. Bright Wilson Prize, the BF Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, the DuPont Young Professor Award, the NSF Young Investigator Award, the Naval Young Investigator Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award.Mirkin served as a Member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (Obama Administration) for eight years, and he is one of very few scientists to be elected to all three US National Academies (Medicine, Science, and Engineering), and in addition, he is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Materials Research Society, and others. Mirkin has served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of over 30 scholarly journals, including JACS, Acc. Chem. Res., Angew. Chem., Adv. Mater., Biomacromolecules, Macromolecular Bioscience, SENSORS, Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Chem. Eur. J., Chemistry & Biology, Nanotechnology Law & Business, The Scientist, J. Mater. Chem., J. Cluster Sci., and Plasmonics. He is the founding editor of the journal Small, one of the premier international nanotechnology journals, and he has co-edited multiple bestselling books. Mirkin holds a B.S. degree from Dickinson College (1986, elected into Phi Beta Kappa) and a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from Penn. State Univ. (1989). He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT prior to becoming a professor at Northwestern Univ. in 1991.Alix Ventures, by way of BIOS Community, is providing this content for general information purposes only. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement nor recommendation by Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, or its affiliates. The views & opinions expressed by guests are their own & their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them nor any entity they represent. Views & opinions expressed by Alix Ventures employees are those of the employees & do not necessarily reflect the view of Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, affiliates, nor its content sponsors.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)

⭐ My guest today is Trevor Best, Cofounder and CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics. He's also a member of our Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community at Entrepreneurs for Impact! Syzygy is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry. They use breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from LED light to power chemical reactions. This new technology has the potential to partially or fully electrify the chemical industry, shifting it to renewable electricity, and cost-effectively reducing its carbon footprint.

Trevor Best is the co-founder and CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, an innovative company creating a photocatalyst technology that is aimed at disrupting the energy industry. Trevor and I discuss the new facility the company is moving into this summer and how syzygy's first full-scale reactor is expected to debut next year.

Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!In episode 110, A new pairing between hydrogen fuel tanks and hydrogen fuel cells will revolutionize aviation. And a big award gets handed out to our friends at Syzygy Plasmonics. All of this on today's hydrogen podcast.Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Please feel free to email me at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com with any questions. Also, if you wouldn't mind subscribing to my podcast using your preferred platform... I would greatly appreciate it. Respectfully,Paul RoddenVISIT THE HYDROGEN PODCAST WEBSITEhttps://thehydrogenpodcast.comCHECK OUT OUR BLOGhttps://thehydrogenpodcast.com/blog/WANT TO SPONSOR THE PODCAST? Send us an email to: info@thehydrogenpodcast.comNEW TO HYDROGEN AND NEED A QUICK INTRODUCTION?Start Here: The 6 Main Colors of Hydrogen

INTERVIEW THP06: Trevor Best / Syzygy Plasmonics - Using Light For A Photocatalytic Chemical Reaction To Create Hydrogen And Revolutionize The Industrial Gas, Chemical, And Energy Industries. Special Interview Series - THP06: Trevor Best / Syzygy Plasmonics - In today's interview I want to highlight a company called Syzygy Plasmonics Inc. (siz-uh-jee). I was speaking on a hydrogen panel with their CEO Trevor Best and we started talking about their ability to use a process called photocatalysis to create hydrogen and I knew I had to get him on the podcast. To give you a brief overview… Syzygy (siz-uh-jee) develops chemical reactors that are both environmentally friendly and capable of disrupting the market. Invented at Rice University, their ‘Antenna-Reactor' nanoparticle system turns traditional catalysts into high efficiency photocatalysts. It is capable of utilizing light to perform high volume chemical reactions at lower costs than are possible today. Syzygy will enter the market with a low-cost, low-emission Hydrogen production system. After a beachhead is established with Hydrogen, Syzygy will develop low-cost, low-emission production systems for other high value chemical reactions that create commodity chemicals such as Ethylene, Ammonia, and Methanol.The technology is amazing. The leadership team is amazing. This company is on my short list of one's to watch for the future. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Please feel free to email me at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com with any questions. Also, if you wouldn't mind subscribing to my podcast using your preferred platform... I would greatly appreciate it. Respectfully,Paul RoddenVISIT THE HYDROGEN PODCAST WEBSITEhttps://thehydrogenpodcast.comCHECK OUT OUR BLOGhttps://thehydrogenpodcast.com/blog/WANT TO SPONSOR THE PODCAST? Send us an email to: info@thehydrogenpodcast.comNEW TO HYDROGEN AND NEED A QUICK INTRODUCTION?Start Here: The 6 Main Colors of Hydrogen

Dr. Monica Allen, a principal research electronics engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory, enlightens listeners on the world of photonics and plasmonics.

Visit https://thermofisher.com/bctl to register for your free Bringing Chemistry to Life T-shirt and https://www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast/ to access the extended video version of this episode and the  episode summary sheet, which contains links to recent publications and additional content recommendations for our guest. You can also access the video version of this episode via https://youtu.be/LtWghIdoeLo. One of the most difficult scientific concepts to grasp is how things behave differently in the macro- vs. the nano-scale. For example, everyone knows that gold is shiny and yellow, but gold nanoparticles suspended in a liquid (colloidal gold) are red. Dr. Emilie Ringe, a Canadian-born Assistant Professor at the University of Cambridge, travelled the world investing the best part of her still young career in studying one of these intriguing phenomena. She is an expert of the so-called plasmonic nano-materials, focusing specifically on magnesium. These materials can collect specific wavelengths of light and emit energy, behaving like nano antennas.The potential applications are incredible, from an efficient way to apply localized energy to chemical reactions, to an innovative and benign cancer treatment. And in perfect Bringing Chemistry to Life style, the discovery of the science and the person go hand in hand, making for a great start of Season 3!

Trevor Best is the CEO and Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics, a startup pioneering a new type of chemical reactor driven by light rather than heat, enabling the potential for dramatically more efficient chemical manufacturing. Trevor and his co-founder, Dr. Suman Khatiwada, commercialized this novel photochemical tech out of Rice University. Trevor covers how he and Suman gained experience evaluating R&D while workign together at Baker Hughes, the methodology they developed to assess new technologies he calls TMI - technology / market / impact - and how to poke holes and find the big hairy problem that's going to kill your business. He covers everything from the very beginning - how they started reading journal publications looking for interesting technologies to commercialize, through their engagement with the inventors at Rice and their process in negotiating a license with the tech transfer office (TTO). Trevor goes into his past startups and why the failed and lessons learned. This convo is rife with good advice for grad-students and entrepreneurs looking to commercialize and I found it personally inspiring. With the right work ethic and the will/stamina to see things through, getting an impactful deeptech invention out of the lab and commercialized is achievable. Enjoy! More about Trevor At Syzygy, Trevor has successfully raised three funding rounds. He is currently focusing on bringing Syzygy's revolutionary photochemical technology to market. Before starting Syzygy, he worked for Baker Hughes. There he steadily progressed into management, where he gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture. Connect with Trevor on LinkedIn. More about Syzygy Developed at Rice University by Professor Halas and Professor Nordlander, this is the world's highest performance photocatalyst. It has been published in leading academic journals such as Science, Nature, and PNAS, to name a few. The catalyst is a platform technology and it has been demonstrated on many different chemical reactions resulting in more than a dozen publications. Visit Syzygy's website to learn more. Join our community of hard science researchers, grad students and entrepreneurs looking to solve global problems. Sign uo on bountiful.work Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. If you want to contribute to this effort, get us at outofthelab.eth

Ever since the first photovoltaic cell in 1954 by Bell Labs, the basic principle behind the technology stayed the same. Exploiting the photoelectric effect, first explained by Einstein in his miracle year of 1905, a light-particle can kick out an electron of a material if it has just the right energy. Through the smart combining of two types of semiconductors, this electron leads to a current in the material, which in the end can be used. Now while over the decades the efficiency of photovoltaics increased a lot, they still rely on the same principle and we only found better materials or ways of engineering. However, Jacinto Sá, Professor of Physical Chemistry at Uppsala University Sweden and CTO of startup Peafowl Solar power has found another way, which is seemingly independent of the incoming light frequency and can be used for transparent solar cells. The resulting material relies on so-called Plasmonics, is only 300nm thin and can be used to power and recharge small devices or dynamic glass. If you enjoyed this episode, why not recommend it to a friend?Homepage: https://www.deeptechstories.ioTwitter: https://twitter.com/deeptechpodLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deeptechstories Music by Nathaniel Drew x Tom Fox:https://www.nathanieldrew.com/https://tfbeats.com/Design by Amadeus Schwed:https://elementsofpuremotion.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

In this episode, we discuss surface plasmon resonance biosensors and their potential application to COVID testing.  A companion Jupyter notebook that allows the simulation of sensitivity of a SPR-based sensor can be found on our webpage: https://foleylab.github.io/gmgauge/

Mr. Best is the founding CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics. He has a demonstrated track record of success in a corporate setting, from management to intrapreneurship. His skills in launching special projects, project management, and supply chain management will be essential for success of this early-stage venture. He graduated from Texas Tech University in 2007 with a triple major in International Business, Marketing, and Management with a minor in Spanish, while also learning Chinese. After joining Baker Hughes in 2009, he has steadily progressed to the level of Senior Manager, where he has gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture. http://plasmonics.tech/team https://nexuspmg.com/

South Africa Power Cuts Is South Africa facing a blackout? Power cuts across the country are now happening regularly as the country struggles with demand for electricity. There’s even an app that tells you if your lights are going to stay on today, or tomorrow. Professor Keith Bell from Strathclyde University explains why this is happening. Plasmonics - computing with light Fancy computing with the speed of light? Well for the first time this is possible thanks to research at Oxford University. Scientists have managed use light to store, access and now process data on chip. The research could significantly increase processing speeds at data centres, not only making computing faster but saving significant amounts of energy. Land of Iron A National Park is usually synonymous with nature and wildlife. Perhaps not the obvious place to find a technology story, but in North Yorkshire in the UK a project is underway that is using technology in many different forms to bring a forgotten history back to life. Our reporter Jack Meegan has been time-travelling for us. Jack finds out how the park’s industrial past can now be seen thanks to technology. World Wise Web Digital Planet gets a sneak preview of a brand BBC new tech podcast. On World Wise Web, teenagers from around the world get the chance to talk to the technology pioneers who have shaped our digital world. (Photo: Township Homes, South Africa. Credit: Getty Images)

Josh Caldwell from Vanderbilt University, and formerly the United States Naval Research Laboratory, talks about his pioneering work in infrared polaritonics. Polaritons are quasiparticles that couple photons to the motion of electrons or atoms in a material, and allow you to squeeze and manipulate light in nanoscale volumes. In the infrared, this capability may one day allow, for example, the roof of your home to cool even when in direct sunlight. Josh and Mike get a little 'in the weeds,' but that's what podcasts are for! Be sure not to miss the great career advice Josh sprinkles in along the way.Show details: • Hosted by Michael Filler (@michaelfiller) • Edited by Andrew Cannon (@andrewhcannon) • Recorded on January 24, 2019• Show notes are available at http://www.fillerlab.com/nanovation/archive/48• Submit feedback at http://www.fillerlab.com/nanovation/feedback

Josh Caldwell from Vanderbilt University, and formerly the United States Naval Research Laboratory, talks about his pioneering work in infrared polaritonics. Polaritons are quasiparticles that couple photons to the motion of electrons or atoms in a material, and allow you to squeeze and manipulate light in nanoscale volumes. In the infrared, this capability may one day allow, for example, the roof of your home to cool even when in direct sunlight. Josh and Mike get a little 'in the weeds,' but that's what podcasts are for! Be sure not to miss the great career advice Josh sprinkles in along the way.Show details: • Hosted by Michael Filler (@michaelfiller) • Edited by Andrew Cannon (@andrewhcannon) • Recorded on January 24, 2019• Show notes are available at http://www.fillerlab.com/nanovation/archive/48• Submit feedback at http://www.fillerlab.com/nanovation/feedback

Plasmonics with heavily doped semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) is an emerging field in NC science. However, impurity doping of NCs remains far from trivial and is, as yet, dominated by a low chemical control over the incorporated dopant atoms. An appealing alternative is vacancy doping, where the formation of vacancies in the structure is responsible for an increased carrier density and elegantly circumvents the issues related to impurity doping. Due to high carrier densities of around 10^21cm^(-3) localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) in the near infrared (NIR) are expected, and as such highlighted to close the gap between conventionally doped NCs and noble metal nanoparticles. Copper chalcogenide NCs, namely copper sulfide (Cu2-xS), copper selenide (Cu2-xSe), and copper telluride (Cu2-xTe), are an attractive example of vacancy doped semiconductor NCs, with spectra dominated by intense NIR resonances. Within this study thorough experimental evidence has been given to prove the plasmonic nature of those NIR resonances. By presenting typical plasmonic characteristics, such as refractive index sensitivity of the LSPR, its intrinsic size dependence, plasmon dynamics, or interparticle plasmon coupling, the LSPRs in copper chalcogenide NCs have unambiguously been identified. The chemical nature of vacancy doping turns out to deliver an additional, highly attractive means of control over the LSPR in vacancy doped copper chalcogenide NCs. Through chemical tailoring of the copper vacancy density via controlled oxidation and reduction, as shown in this study, a reversible tuning of the LSPR over a wide range of frequencies in the NIR (1000-2000 nm) becomes feasible. This highlights copper chalcogenide NCs over conventional plasmonic materials. Notably, the complete suppression of the LSPR uncovers the excitonic features present only in the purely semiconducting, un-doped NCs and reveals the unique option to selectively address excitons and highly tunable LSPRs in one material (bandgap Eg~1.2 eV). As such, copper chalcogenide NCs appear to hold as an attractive material system for the investigation of exciton plasmon interactions. Indeed, a quenching of the excitonic transitions in the presence of the developing LSPR is demonstrated within this work, with a full recovery of the initial excitonic properties upon its suppression. A theoretical study on the shape dependent plasmonic properties of Cu2-xTe NCs reveals a deviation from the usual Drude model and suggests that the carriers in vacancy doped copper chalcogenide NCs cannot be treated as fully free. On the other hand, the Lorentz model of localized oscillators appears to account for the weak shape dependence, as observed experimentally, indicating an essential degree of localization of the carriers in vacancy doped copper chalcogenide NCs. Taken together, this work delivers a huge step toward the complete optical and structural characterization of plasmonic copper chalcogenide NCs. The advantages of semiconductor NC chemistry have been exploited to provide access to novel plasmonic shapes, such as tetrapods that have not been feasible to produce so far. A precise size, shape and phase control presents the basis for this study, and together with a thorough theoretical investigation delivers important aspects to uncover the tunable plasmonic properties of vacancy doped copper chalcogenide NCs.

Solar cell technology gets an upgrade with this turbo-charged breakthrough

Managing Editor Heather Tierney highlights features and research content from Volume 5, Issue 7. In this episode we learn about imaging water droplet formation at the nanoscale. Then, we hear about using atomic force microscopy and mass spectrometry to obtain spatially resolved chemical information and physical characterization from the same sample with nanometer-scale resolution. We also introduce the newest ACS Nano virtual issue on Plasmonics. Featuring interviews with authors John Henry Scott and Konrad Rykaczewski and Gary Van Berkel.