® LIQUID CRYSTAL INSTITUTE and CHEMICAL PHYSICS INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAM KENT STATE UNIVERSITY ANNUAL REPORT July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009 Oleg D. Lavrentovich, Director 2008-2009 Annual Report Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program BOOKMARKS Bookmarks are included for ease of navigation. On the Adobe Acrobat Toolbar, click, “View” then select, “Navigation Panels” and “Bookmarks”. Click on any bookmark to go to the selected item. TABLE OF CONTENTS Director’s Report..............................................................................................................................1 Achievements and Recognition........................................................................................................3 Summary of Accomplishments and Activities .................................................................................4 Major Funding Sources and Expenditures .......................................................................................5 LCI Highlights ................................................................................................................................7 In Memoriam ..............................................................................................................................12 Table 1 Liquid Crystal Institute Staff ......................................................................................14 Table 2 Liquid Crystal Institute Research Personnel...............................................................15 Table 3 Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program Faculty.................................................17 Table 4 Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program Students ...............................................18 Table 5 Scholarships and Fellowships.....................................................................................20 Table 6 Graduate Degrees Awarded ........................................................................................21 Table 7 Placement of Personnel...............................................................................................22 Table 8 Visiting Scientists .......................................................................................................23 Table 9 Grants and Contracts...................................................................................................24 Table 10 Proposals for Extramural Support...............................................................................31 Table 11 Patents.........................................................................................................................36 Table 12 Publications.................................................................................................................38 Table 13 Presentations ...............................................................................................................45 Table 14 Other Scholarly Activities...........................................................................................59 Table 15 Seminar Program ........................................................................................................63 Table 16 Industrial Partnership Program ...................................................................................66 Table 17 Research Facility Report.............................................................................................67 Table 18 Research Facility Services Provided...........................................................................68 Table 19 Education and Public Service .....................................................................................69 APPENDICES I. Student Achievements Lena Lopatina Receives Amelia Earhart Fellow...............................................................75 II. Outreach and Research Activities Plain Dealer Article on Greenhouse Project......................................................................77 Liquid Crystal Day Brochure ............................................................................................81 Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program Brochure.....................................................85 Industrial Partnership Program and LCD Research Facility Brochure .............................87 Technology Transfer Brochure..........................................................................................89 III. Extramural Grant Funding, 1982-2009..................................................................................91 IV. Doctoral Dissertations on Liquid Crystals ..........................................................................105 2008-2009 Director’s Report Personnel During 2008-2009 we successfully recruited world-renowned liquid crystal scientist, Dr. Hiroshi Yokoyama as the first of two Ohio Research Scholars funded by the Ohio Department of Development. Dr. Yokoyama has served as director of the Nanotechnology Research Institute (NRI), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. He joins the Liquid Crystal Institute on July 1, 2009 as a professor in the Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program. Dr. Yokoyama will be a major contributor to the ODOD funded project, “Research Cluster on Surfaces in Advanced Materials (RC-SAM)". He will also design a new Chemical Physics course focused on nanotechnology. See “Highlights” on page 7 for more information on Dr. Yokoyama. The field of liquid crystal science and technology lost two of its most prominent figures. KSU Professor Emeritus Alfred Saupe and Dr. James L. Fergason both passed away in 2008. See pages 12-13 for more information on their scientific impact and legacy. In December, 2008, Professor Jack Kelly retired from Kent State University to fully focus on his startup company, CoAdna Photonics, Inc. CoAdna was established in 2000 and has been highly successful in using liquid crystal technology for the design and manufacture of a wavelength selective switch module for telecommunication networks. His company is an excellent example of how liquid crystal technology helps the economy in Northeast Ohio. With the departure of Dr. Kelly and the addition of Dr. Yokoyama, our senior staff remains at eleven faculty and one senior research fellow. Research The LCI continued to successfully bring extramural funding to Kent State University, applying for 45 grants totaling $43,582,575. LCI scientists were awarded 19 new grants totaling $5,242,347 with over $3 million in grant proposals pending at fiscal year end. Two proposals were for major centers: International Liquid Crystal Materials Institute ($5,372,833) and Department of Energy Frontiers Research Center ($25,000,000); unfortunately, neither was awarded. The Liquid Crystal Institute received 65% of its total fiscal year support through extramural sources. We extended collaborations with industries, both domestic and international, with funding from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), Samsung Electronics in Korea, Johnson & Johnson-Vistakon Division, Dupont, and Intel; subawards were received from ATK Space Systems, Kent Displays, General Dynamics, Pixel Optics, Dynamic Eye, and the University of Akron. Federal sources comprised 29% of our total extramural funding and included the National Science Foundation, Air Force Research Laboratories, National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, and Air Force Office of Science Research. The State of Ohio provided 29% (see Pie Graph note on page 5) of our extramural funding through the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of Development. Other funding sources include the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM), NorTech, and the Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust. We continued research collaborations with colleagues in the KSU departments of Architectural and Environmental Design (Sharag-Eldin), Biological Sciences (Kooijman, Woolverton), Chemistry (Gericke, Lee, Twieg), School of Fashion Design and Merchandising (Schofield- Tomschin), Geology (Ortiz), Mathematical Sciences (Gartland), Computer Sciences (Maletic) 1 and Physics (Finotello, Gleeson, Kumar, Portman, Sprunt). Of the 52 active grants, 14 involved KSU investigators from other departments and 3 included investigators from other universities. Education and Outreach Chemical Physics professor Antal Jákli completed the second year of his 3-year collaborative research grant to study liquid crystals in Europe. He selected KSU graduate students and one California undergraduate to travel to Europe with him to conduct research in Hungary, Portugal, Austria and Germany. See “Highlights”, pages 8-9, for more information on their research experiences. Scholarships Three Chemical Physics students were selected as the first scholarship recipients from the Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust. The Lennon Trust will provide scholarships for a 3-year period. Nicholas Diorio, Jake Fontana and Shin-Ying Lu were selected in 2009 from a competition based on proposals that demonstrate innovation, entrepreneurship and the potential for product development (See Table 5). This was the final year of a 5-year program generously supported by Samsung Electronics Company, LTD, Korea, to provide scholarships to outstanding Chemical Physics graduate students. Scholarships were awarded through a competition whereby students submitted research project proposals. Chemical Physics faculty reviewed the proposals and awarded scholarships for the most promising