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)
05.16.25 Circular dichroism of chiral biomolecules is amplified at plasmonic junctions. We take a closer look at this phenomenon and its underlying physics with our experimental collaborators in the Link group in an article published in Nano Letters. link
05.05.25 Congratulations to Rachel for being selected to receive the 2025 Walter Klemperer Outstanding Materials PhD thesis award!
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.