Research

 We are interested in building photofunctional devices or in developing a new spectroscopic and microsccopic techniques to control or organize the devices efficiently. To accomplish this goal, we have several special techniques; time-resolved techniques, microscopy and microfluidics. 

By the combination of the spectroscopy and microscopy, and microfluidic techniques, we have studied various photo-devices and photo-responsive materials, such as solar cells, photocatalysts and photo-responsive liquid crystals. 

In the photocatalysts and solar cells, we studied on the dynamics of the charge carriers, which are closely relevant to the photo-current generation and photo-catalytic chemical reactions. By the control of the interfacial structure, the charge carriers can be smoothly controlled toward the outside circuit.

Concerning the photo-responsive liquid crystals, the molecular dynamics of the liquid crystal molecules due to the light irradiation has been investigated. Especially we are interested in the molecular dynamics around the topological defects, where the molecular orientation cannot be defined. In recent years, the molecular orientation change can be extended from the topological defects and control the final structure as a result.

Since the size of the spectroscopic data  and microscopic images is becoming larger and larger, it is more difficult to distinguish which feature of the data is really important. For these analyses, we use the statistical data analysis such as feature extraction, data mining, data assimilation, regression, machine learning.