Research

(1) Synthesis of polymer / noble metal nanoparticles

As chemists and materials scientists, we are keenly interested in synthesizing new nanoparticles with controlled sizes and shapes for their distinctive chemical and physical properties. Recently, our focus has been on the development of DNA nanoparticles whose reversible condensation is chemically controlled by multivalent metal ions, polycations, chelates, and reducing agents. Such DNA nanoparticles show excellent potential as templates for metallization, nanoprobes for sensitive detection, and photothermal agents for cancer therapy.
References: Publications # 78, 84, 85

(2) Surface-functionalization of nanomaterials

We strategically enhance the novel properties of nanoparticles through their surface functionalization. The design and selection of chemical bonds to conjugate these functionalizing materials to the nanoparticle surface is indeed a lot of fun. This requires intensive study of the interfacial chemistry for conjugation, depending on the type of particle and ligand materials. Recently, we have developed general and simple methods to functionalize silver halide nanoparticles with metallic mesh structures and polymeric nanoparticles with oligonucleotides. The functionalized silver halides are highly useful as visible photocatalysts, which can remove environmental pollutants simply under sunlight irradiation.
References: Publications # 28, 34, ... 58, 63, 70, 79, 82, 85

(3) Large-scale production of nanomaterials

The practical use and application of nanoparticles is usually hampered by their quantity; this unfortunate situation occurs because most efforts are focused on synthetic control of nanoparticles in terms of size and shape, rather than controlling the quantity of nanoparticles produced. We are interested in industrial applications of nanoparticles based on their large-scale production and have recently reported the gram-scale synthesis of gold nanoparticles using polymerizable solvents.
References: Publications # 80, 83