Poornima Rangadurai

Non-equilibrium Behavior in Artificial Nanoassemblies - Mechanistic

Investigations and Implications

3:30PM

Biological systems are open systems and can exchange matter and energy with the environment, and this energy propels their non-equilibrium state of existence. The potential of far-from-equilibrium systems are yet to be fully understood and tapped in artificial systems, with only a few man-made working examples in literature. Another elusive feature from nature is the extremely short response time-scales and the length over which these signals are propagated. In this research, we have built a supramolecular system that functions under non-equilibrium conditions as well as exhibit very short trigger to response time scales. We show that the effect of a local disruption in a single chemical bond, percolates through the system (a distance of over 500 bonds), in extremely short timescales, resulting in interesting property changes and molecular effects/responses.