Coupling energy and matter on the nanoscale
ENERGY/MATTER INTERFACE
Image: Ryan McCarron, King's College London
About
Our research misssion is to understand and control the energy–matter interface. In particular, we study quantum light-matter interactions using spectroscopy, superresolution imaging, nanoscience, and theory. We are applying this understanding to develop new electric field-driven synthesis and catalytic pathways for sustainable production of molecules and fuels. We are housed in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with affiliations with Physics, Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology (IQUIST), and the Materials Research Laboratory. Group alumni have gone on to academia (10 tenure-track/tenured faculty members, including a recent NSF CAREER awardee), staff scientist positions at national labs and federal agencies, semiconductor and microelectronics industry, and startups.
Research Mission
Light-matter interactions are central in nature, life, and in technology. There are three aspects of the light–matter interface that we study using spectroscopy, microscopy, and theory:
i) We employ the rich interplay between visible light and metal catalysts for finding new non-thermal modes of reactivity, promoting selective formation of chemical bonds, catalyzing multielectron chemistry, and manufacturing fuels and energetic chemicals with photons as reagents.
ii) We image with nanoscale spatial resolution chemical reactions on surfaces or nanoparticles and uncover their mechanistic pathways.
iii) We design quantum materials and coax them into exhibiting non-natural optical or optoelectronic phenomena
Selected Papers
Optically induced fields tune selectivity
Ammonia electrosynthesis with light
Distinguishing non-thermal effects from thermal effects in plasmonic catalysis
J Phys Chem C 2019 (link)
The LK-99 superconductivity puzzle
J Phys Chem C 2019 (link & feature)
Watching carbon fixation on a nanoparticle
Nature Comm. 2021 (link)
Twins and superionicity
Nature Comm. 2019 (link)
Plasmonic photosynthesis
Nature Comm. 2019 (link & news)
Watching an order-disorder transition
Nature Comm. 2019 (link)
Multi-electron redox plasmonic catalysis
Nature Chem. 2018 (link & news)
Plasmonic catalysis of carbon fixation
Nano Lett. 2018 (link & cover)
Graphene formation in plasmonic catalysis
Nature Comm. 2018 (link)
Superionicity on the nanoscale
Nature Comm. 2017 (link & news)
Co-operative transitions in nanocrystals
Nature Comm. 2013 (link & news)
A regenerable sorbent for hydrogen sulfide
Featured Research
Leveraging the discovery of plasmonic multielectron redox catalysis (Kim & Jain, 2016), the following photopowered transformations have been developed in our laboratory for sustainable chemical manufacturing and solar-fuel synthesis
CO2 conversion to methane (Yu & Jain)
Imidazolium-promoted CO2 conversion (Yu & Jain)
Ammonia electrosynthesis (Contreras, Nixon, & Jain)
Water dissociation (Yu & Jain)
Hydrogen evolution reaction (Wilson & Jain)
Alcohol dehydrogenation (Kim, Yu, Mohan, & Jain)
Alcohol electrooxidation (with Xiongwu Kang's lab)
Ammonia electrooxidation (Wang & Jain)
Graphene photosynthesis (Zhang & Jain)
Norrish-like cleavage of ketones and aldehydes (Mohan & Jain)
Join Us
Join us on Twitter @plasmon
We are always looking for graduate students from our Chemistry, MatSE, ChBE, or Physics graduate programs to join us. If you are already admitted to one of these programs, please contact Prof. Jain by emailing jain (at) illinois (dot) edu for openings. For prospective students who have not yet been admitted to a UIUC graduate program, please contact the program of your interest for information about admissions. Students are admitted into a department or a program rather than into a group. The process of selecting and joining a group starts after you have been admitted.
We have openings for postdoctoral scholars from time to time. Candidates with experience in time-dependent electronic structure theory, heterogeneous catalysis, surface science, and optical microscopy may write to Prof. Jain by emailing jain (at) illinois (dot) edu with a CV, one selected representative publication, and a 1-page-or less research statement. Please arrange to have three recommendation letters sent to Prof. Jain.
Our research is at the intersection of chemistry, materials science, and condensed matter physics, areas in which UIUC has highly ranked programs and has been home to 20 Nobel laureates & discoveries/inventions such as the LED, MRI, and theory of superconductors. UIUC also houses the world-class Materials Research Laboratory, where we perform a lot of our work.
Our group is diverse in several respects. We value inclusiveness and support and cherish the successes of all of our group members link. In our science, we value quality over quantity. We value people over productivity.
You can learn about the CU area in this short video.
Latest News (Click here for archive)
04.07.25 Rachel has successfully defended her PhD dissertation on the synthesis of ammonia by the integration of electrochemistry with light energy and nanostructured catalysts. Congratulations to soon-to-be Dr. Nixon!
02.06.25 Congratulations to group alumnus, Dr. Kihyun Cho who is starting a tenure-track faculty position in Energy Engineering at Dankook University in South Korea!
01.31.25 Prashant named the winner of the 2025 Craver Award by the Coblentz Society for contributions to applied spectroscopy. link The plenary lecture and award symposium with four invited speakers will be held at the 2025 SciX meeting during Oct 5–10, 2025.
01.31.25 Wenxin has passed his preliminary examination. Congratulations, Wenxin!
01.07.25 Welcome to sophomore and Merit program student Claudia Niemyjski who is all set to start her research in our laboratory this semester.
01.06.25 Congratulations to group alumnus, Dr. Andrew Wilson, for receiving a prestigious NSF CAREER award.
01.06.25 Prashant listed among 'Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students' with an Outstanding rating for his Fall 2024 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (Chem 444; Physical Chemistry II) course for Chemistry undergraduates. link
12.23.24 Postdoctoral scholar Devashish Gokhale (PhD MIT) co-advised with Prof. Xiao Su is named a Professor Joe Greene Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Materials Research Laboratory. Congratulations, Devashish!
11.25.24 Prashant will give a seminar on "photon-dressed chemical reactions" in the Department of Chemistry—Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University.
11.15.24 Prashant gave invited talks on "thermodynamics and kinetics of plasmonic chemistry" and "fast ions in nanostructures at the MATSUS 2024 held at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
11.07.24 We welcome incoming MatSE PhD student Shantiv Sudarshan (B.S. in Chemistry from Washington St. Louis) to the group.
10.16.24 Our work on the optical control of catalyst selectivity is featured by the UIUC News Bureau link, Dutch magazine New Scientist link, and several other science news media. link
08.27.24 The product selectivity of a metal nanoparticle electrocatalyst is overturned by the action of electric fields generated by excitation of plasmon resonances in the nanoparticles. Our latest findings will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. link Congratulations to team members (Frank Alcorn now at Sandia National Labs, Rachel Nixon, and Maya Chattoraj now at MIT) and our collaborators (George Schatz and Sajal Kumar Giri at Northwestern University).
08.27.24 We have received a Discovery award for the development of plasmonically powered yeast biofactories for chemical manufacturing with our collaborator Prof. Angad Mehta.
08.14.24 Congratulations to Sreelekshmi for receiving the Thor R. Rubin Fellowship, to Omar for the Eugene P. and Julianne V. Janulis Graduate Fellowship, and to Arda for the Kenneth L. Rinehart Fellowship from the Department of Chemistry!
7.25.24 We bid fond farewell to Dr. Enrique Contreras, who starts as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the California State University in San Bernandino, CA.
07.25.24 Congratulations to group alumna, Dr. Progna Banerjee (PhD in Physics), who is just starting her position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Loyola University.
06.03.24 Prashant listed among 'Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students' for his Spring 2024 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (Chem 444; Physical Chemistry II) course for Chemistry undergraduates. link
05.15.24 Our viewpoint article on hydrogen evolution from a spurious source is published in ACS Energy Letters. link Congratulations to Chloe.
04.26.24 Prashant gave the UIUC Condensed Matter Physics seminar on “Few-Electron Plasmon Resonances”.
04.16.24 Prashant gave the Center for Advanced Study Food for Thought talk: "Path of a Photon in Artificial Photosynthesis".
04.12.24 Congratulations to postdoctoral scholar Dr. Enrique Contreras, who will soon start his tenure-track faculty position and research group in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the California State University in San Bernandino, CA.
03.22.24 Welcome to our newest group member, Juhee Ha, a visiting scholar from Yeungnam University.
03.11.24 Welcome to our newest group member, postdoctoral research scholar Dr. Hyun-Hang Shin who is an expert on single-molecule vibrational spectroscopy and theoretical modeling of non-thermal excitations.
03.01.24 Prashant gave the Physics and Astronomy seminar "From photons to chemical bonds" at the University of Texas San Antonio.
02.22.24 Prashant receives the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, awarded for the first time to a Department of Chemistry faculty member. link
02.22.24 We are hosting Prof. Han-Kyu Choi of Kunsan National University and former alumnus Prof. Youngsoo Kim of Yeungnam University this week. Prof. Choi gave a talk on "Proving the Existence of Single Molecules in Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering Spectra."
02.12.24 Prashant receives the 2024 LAS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, awarded for the first time to a Department of Chemistry faculty member. link
02.09.24 A special issue on Hot Electrons in Catalysis link guest-co-edited by Reinhard Maurer and Prashant is now out in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C with a preface. link
02.07.24 Welcome to four new group members: Chemistry PhD student Arda Turk, sophomore in Computer Science and Chemistry and James Scholar Ram Ganesan, ChBE freshman Tharun Baburaj, and Engineering Physics senior Ayush Sharma.
12.14.23 Prashant joins the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and the Journal of Chemical Physics (JCP) effective Jan 1, 2024.
12.06.23 Prashant invested as the G. L. Clark Professor of Physical Chemistry. link
12.04.23 We are delighted to host Prof. Jose Manuel Romo Herrera from Centro de Nanociencias y Nanotecnología Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México this week and advance joint efforts on catalytic solutions for nitrate remediation.
10.26.23 We welcome visiting researcher, José Manuel Ruiz Marizcal, from Centro de Nanociencias y Nanotecnología Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
10.17.23 Recent graduate Frank Alcorn named a recipient of the 2023 Klemperer Award for Outstanding Materials Chemistry PhD Thesis! Congratulations to Frank!
10.03.23 Prashant named the 2023 recipient of the Akron American Chemical Society (ACS) award. Thank you to the Akron section of the ACS and to supportive colleagues and many coworkers who have contributed to our research program. Prashant will give two award lectures in Akron, including one on “Catalysts Dressed in Light”.
09.19.23 We are excited to be part of a team link supported by the National Science Foundation's Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program. link
09.13.23 Welcome to our newest group member, postdoctoral scholar, Dr. Daeho Kim. Dr. Kim brings expertise in heterogeneous catalysis and surface science.
09.08.23 Our explanation of the purported room-temperature superconductivity signatures of LK-99 now published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C and is the topmost read article of this month. link
08.16.23 Our contribution link to the puzzle of purported room-temperature superconductivity in LK-99 featured in a Nature news article "LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery" link and many features in the news media. link
08.09.23 Tracking gold-copper nanoparticles using a dynamic environmental transmission electron microscope equipped for laser irradiation showed them Ostwald ripening under the action of plasmonic excitation. Our findings are published in a virtual special issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry C on hot electrons in catalysis. link Congratulations to first author Frank and the rest of the team, which included UG researcher, Maya Chattoraj, now a graduate student at MIR and Prof. Renske van der Veen of Helmholtz Zentrum, Berlin!
08.09.23 Congratulations to Chloe for receiving the University Block Grant and the Peixin He and Xiaoming Chen PhD4 Graduate Fellowship, Omar for the Robert F. Carr Fellowship in Chemistry, Sreelekshmi for the John and Margaret Witt Fellowship, and Wenxin for being named the Racheff Teaching Fellow by the MatSE department.
08.02.03 Our review article on excited-state electrochemistry using plasmons has been published in Trends of Chemistry. Congratulations to Rachel and Enrique! link
07.26.23 Prashant is named among this year's Blavatnik National Awards Finalists! Thank you to the Blavatnik foundation for recognizing the contributions of the lab. link
07.03.23 Using our dynamic environmental transmission electron microscope equipped for laser irradiation, we observed in real time how copper-copper oxide nanoparticles restructure under plasmonic excitation. Our findings are published in Nano Letters. link Congratulations to first author Frank and collaborator Prof. Renske van der Veen, of the Helmholtz Zentrum in Berlin!
06.22.23 The group says farewell to Frank who will soon start a postdoctoral research position at Sandia National Laboratories.
05.31.23 Congratulations to Frank, soon-to-be Dr. Francis Alcorn, on a successful defense of his PhD dissertation "Investigating nanoscale dynamics in light absorbing nanostructures using transmission electron microscopy".
05.30.23 Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Aidan Lindsay on receiving the 2023 American Chemical Society’s Undergraduate Award in Physical Chemistry for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
05.15.23 Congratulations to Emmet Rubin on his graduation with a B.S. in Chemistry. We also bid a fond farewell to him, Aidan Lindsay, and visiting scholar Lucas Germano and wish them the best for their future endeavors.
05.04.23 Congratulations to Rachel on passing her preliminary examination with flying colors and becoming a PhD candidate.
04.24.23 Prashant will give the Physical Chemistry seminar at MIT and Chemistry colloquium at Northwestern University on non-thermal catalysis in photonic fields.
04.11.23 Prashant will deliver two invited talks at the 2023 MRS Spring meeting on the foundations and prospects of catalysis and electrochemistry using plasmons.
03.31.23 Congratulations to Aidan on becoming a 2023 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar!
03.27.23 Congratulations to Molly for receiving the John E. Gieseking Scholarship for Undergraduate Research from the Department of Chemistry.
03.22.23 Chloe has passed her preliminary examination and is now a PhD candidate. Congratulations, Chloe!
02.22.23 Our review article on time-resolved electron microscopy now published in Nature Chemistry Reviews. link Congratulations to Frank and our collaborator Prof. van der Veen.
01.31.23 Lab is awarded joint seed funding with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) to explore an electricity and solar-powered solution to nitrate pollution of water in areas of Mexico and US. Thank you to the Illinois Mexican & Mexican-American Students Initiative (I-MMAS) and the Coordinación de la Investigación Científica of UNAM for the funding. Dr. Contreras and Prof. Jain are excited to launch this work with Prof. Romo-Herrera of CNyN-UNAM.
01.09.23 Prashant listed among 'Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students' for his Fall 2022 Thermodynamics and Physical Chemistry II course for Chemistry undergraduates (Chem 444). link