CAREER: Gold Nanoparticles with Single Surface Functional Groups: Synthesis and Study PI: Qun Huo, North Dakota State University, DMR Objective: Develop molecular nanoparticle building blocks with controlled chemical functionalities Significance: Such nanoparticles allow precise control of nanomaterial structures and properties Important accomplishments: (1) Successfully developed a solid phase synthesis technique to make the proposed monofunctional nanoparticles; (2) Using these molecular nanobuilding blocks, we developed a unique nanonecklace material exhibiting new optical limiting effect with potential applications for laser protection Impact: This work demonstrated an excellent example of how to design better nanobuilding block materials and how to use these building blocks to develop materials with well- controlled structures and novel properties that have not been achieved from conventional bulky materials Publications (year 2005): 1.Sun, W.; Dai, Q.; Worden, J.G.; Huo, Q. J. Phys. Chem. B 2005, in press 2.Dai, Q.; Worden, J.G.; Trullinger, J.; Huo, Q. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, Liu, X.; Worden, J.G.; Huo, Q.; Brennan, J.P. J. Phys. Chem. B2005 submitted. Monofunctional gold nanoparticles Nanoengineered hybrid materials Nonlinear optical limiting properties Hybrid materials Individual NPs

Graduate and undergraduate student training CAREER: Gold Nanoparticles with Single Surface Functional Groups: Synthesis and Study: PI: Qun Huo, North Dakota State University, DMR Total seven graduate students, one undergraduate students and one postdoctoral fellow have been trained in this project: James G. Worden, Andrew Shaffer, Rajeshi Raja Puthenkovilakom, Qiu Dai, Xiong Liu, Yaping Hou, Haiou Xiang, Jonathan Trullinger (undergraduate), Jinhai Wang (Postdoctoral) Students graduated after working on this project: James Worden (Ph.D. 2005), Andrew Shaffer (M.Sc. 2004), Rajeshi Raja Puthenkovilakom (M.Sc. 2003) Papers published from graduate students and undergraduate students: Total five papers published, one submitted under review process, and one patent application filed Conferences that graduate students have attended and presented their work: Students regularly attend national and international conferences in materials and chemistry research, such as Material Research Society meeting, American Chemical Society meeting, etc. Outreach and collaborative activities As a material chemistry group, we extended our study beyond chemistry field and established a strong multidisciplinary collaboration with engineer, physicist, and mathematician to explore the development of novel nanomaterials. These collaborations has resulted in one publication and one additional manuscript under review process in less than a year. We also received an NSF NIRT award (DMI ) to continue these collaborative work. Dr. Huo attended the XIV International Materials Research Congress meeting in Cancun Mexico, presented our research work there and had discussions with international collaborators. Graduate students James Worden and Qiu Dai attended the China Nano2005 conference held in Beijing, June 2005.