Vázquez Research Group

Precision in life science is an analytical chemistry problem. Concerning biological imaging, sensing, and nanoparticle analysis, current instrument development is focused on using traditional fluorescent dyes to “shed light” on long-standing biological problems. In addition, conventional instrumentation focuses on bulk biological analysis. The Vázquez Lab combines state-of-the-art dye design with biological characterization techniques to develop unique techniques and instrumentation capable of interrogating biological nanoparticles at the single entity level.

Emissive materials and light-harvesting materials are what I call “photophysical cousins”. In the former, you convert electricity or photons to more photons, and in the latter, you convert photons into electricity. In both cases, what largely determines their photophysics is their excited state dynamics. The Vázquez lab is working on controlling the excited state of such organic semiconductors by molecular design so that specific optoelectronic applications can be targeted. By combining design, synthesis, and transient absorption spectroscopy, novel organic materials are tailored and optimized for their use in bioanalytics, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), photovoltaics (PVs), and other emerging applications.

It is possible to design organic semiconductors with ionic functionalities as sidechains so that they are water-processable, and applications in the aqueous phase can be explored. Of relevance is that their physico-electrochemical properties can be tuned by external stimuli such as solution identity, temperature, and mechanical force. The Vázquez lab is working on developing such materials, namely Conjugated Oligoelectrolytes (COEs) and Polyelectrolytes (CPEs) for energy transduction applications in the aqueous phase. By combining design, synthesis, and electrochemical methods, novel organic materials are tailored and optimized for their use in bioanalytics, green energy storage, bioelectrosynthesis, and other emerging applications.