Handheld Optoelectronic Noses: Development, Applications, and Future Directions
Dr. Zheng LI
North Carolina State University

About the Speaker
Dr. Li received his B.S. from Nanjing University in 2012, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2017. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at North Carolina State University/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests focus on the development of new chromogenic or fluorometricgas sensors and sensor arrays for a wide range of applications. He holds two patents and has published 10 first-authored, high-impact papers.  

Talk Introduction
There has been a pressing demand to develop effective methodologies for rapid, sensitive, portable, and inexpensive detection of analytes of interest, such as harmful species in gases or aqueous solutions. Array-based sensor technologies, or “electronic noses”, typically use a class of electroactive sensors that interact with targets commonly through physical adsorption, and generate electrical responses. Those sensors, however, suffer from several drawbacks in real-world applications including poor selectivity and severe interference from the environment. Inspired by the mammalian olfactory system, we have recently developed an optical sensor array based on visible and chemoresponsive colorantsto overcome those obstacles. The specific chemical recognition originates from the composite intermolecular interactions between multiple chromophores/fluorophores and the targets. This talk will demonstrate the design of molecular sensors, sensing concepts and mechanisms, fabrication methods, instrumentation for sensor signal analyses, as well as their applications in security screening, biomedical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, and food quality inspection.  

Time: 10:00-11:00, April 22, 2019
Location: Conference Room 103, Office Building
All are welcome！