Alexander L. Ayzner
aayzner@ucsc.edu
2020 – present: Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UC Santa Cuz
2014 – 2020: Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UC Santa Cuz
2011 – 2014: Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Advisors: Dr. Michael F. Toney, Prof. Zhenan Bao
2010: PhD, physical chemistry, UCLA Advisor: Prof. Benjamin J. Schwartz
2003: B.S., chemistry, University of San Francisco Advisor: Prof. Jeff C. Curtis
Select Awards:
– 2019: NSF CAREER award
– 2016: Hellman Foundation Fellowship
– 2003: “Most Likely to Succeed in the Chemical Professions” (USF)
About Alex
I was born in Odessa, Ukraine (then part of the former Soviet Union), briefly lived in Siberia and eventually moved to Moscow, Russia. In the middle of high school, I moved from Moscow to San Francisco and soon after enrolled as a chemistry major at the University of San Francisco.
Working in the physical/inorganic lab under the direction of Jeff Curtis, I studied the effect of ligand substitution on solution-phase electron transfer between octahedral ruthenium complexes using temperature-dependent F19 NMR line broadening. The time spent in the Curtis group began my fascination with the electron transfer reaction. As a senior, I had the pleasure and fortune of taking Prof. Thomas Gruhn’s Polymer Chemistry class.
Exposure to conducting polymers concomitant with my nascent interest in physical chemistry led me to graduate study in Prof. Ben Schwartz’s group in the UCLA Chemistry department. My PhD work centered on understanding motion of charges and neutral electronic excited states (excitons) in organic photovoltaics based on conjugated polymer / fullerene heterojunctions. The particular emphasis of my work was on the role of the fullerene electron acceptor. My time in the Schwartz group added to my interest in the physical chemistry of electron transfer and started a new fascination with excitonic energy transfer in molecular semiconductors.
After defending my dissertation, I started a postdoc position under Prof. Zhenan Bao in the Chemical Engineering department at Stanford University and Dr. Mike Toney in the Materials Science division of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Instead of optical spectroscopy and charge transport measurements, I focused on X-ray scattering and X-ray spectroscopy of organic semiconductor thin films and heterojunction interfaces. This allowed me to learn how to relate physical structure to optoelectronic function of organic semiconductor devices.
In the Summer of 2014, I started my Assistant Professor appointment in the Chemistry department of UC Santa Cruz. My group is currently working on furthering the understanding of light harvesting in organic semiconductor assemblies using a combination of spectroscopic, charge-transport and photon-scattering techniques.