Sanford Asher

 

Professor, Department of Chemistry

701 Chevron

412-624-8570, 0588(fax)

asher@pitt.edu

http://www.chem.pitt.edu/people/faculty.asp?FacID=3

 

 

Sanford Asher’s group pioneered the development of photonic crystal materials and devices and the development of responsive photonic crystals that can be used for optical switching and chemical sensing.  For example, they are developing non invasive contact lens sensors to determine glucose in tear fluid.  They are also developing point-of-care clinical chemistry sensors for the patient bedside. The Asher group developed new optical diffraction materials by utilizing crystalline  colloidal array self assembly.  Highly charged nanoscale and mesoscale monodisperse colloidal particles self assemble into face centered cubic crystals whose lattice spacings can be adjusted such that these photonic crystals diffract UV, visible or near IR light.  This work led to the first photonic crystal patent in 1986. The Asher group has continued to develop smart photonic crystal materials by inventing methods to polymerize hydrogels around crystalline colloidal arrays. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highly charged monodisperse colloidal particles (left). Diffraction from crystalline colloidal array of nanoscale and mesoscale colloidal particles (right).