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Department of Chemistry Graduate Seminar Announcement Date/Time/Venue Title/Speaker 7 Apr (Thu) 9am – 10am What components are crucial in determining chemical/material properties? @ S8 Level 3 Executive Classroom Dr Yang Shuo-Wang Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR Host : Assoc Professor John Yip Hon Kay About the Speaker Dr. Yang Shuo-Wang earned his B. Sc. in Physical Chemistry, with specialization in theoretical chemistry, and his M. Sc. in Inorganic Chemistry from Zhejiang University (China) in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He received his second M. Sc. in Chemistry of natural products and Ph. D in Quantum Chemistry respectively from National University of Singapore. He joined in National Supercomputer Research Centre (NSRC, Singapore) in 1998 as a research fellow. In 2000, he was transferred into Institute of High Performance Computing (Singapore). During his early research career, he carried out many contractual industry projects for local and overseas multinational companies. Subsequently, he has been mainly working on academic researches as a Research Scientist. Currently, his research interests include studies on various nanostructures, such as nanowires, nanotubes and nanoclusters, especially on sandwich molecular wires and their surface assembly to explore the applications in molecular electronics or spintronics. Abstract Many chemical/material properties can be accounted in terms of their structures, which are the architecture of various elements/atoms via different chemical bonds. Besides the elements/atoms, the understanding of these structures hinges strongly on the understanding of the chemical bonds that link/bind the atoms together within the structures. As chemical bonds are formed due to the overlap of the orbitals, in which electrons are paired, it is important to understand how electrons are arranged, i.e. the electron configurations in the structures. In this one hour and a half session, I will start by introducing valence-bond theory and the principal requirements for the formation of a covalent bond and suitably oriented electron orbitals on each of the atoms being bonded. In addition, I will discuss on the characteristics of purely atomic and hybrid orbitals, and how they form single, double or triple bonds respectively. More importantly, the electronic configurations in each type of bond or structure will be illustrated clearly so that we can fully understand the fundamental mechanisms behind chemical/material properties. Some vivid examples will be given, from small organic compounds and minerals to macromolecules or polymers, to elucidate aforementioned concepts. I would also like to demonstrate the relationships between atoms, chemical bonds, electron configurations in correlation to the chemical/material structures and their properties. Upon attending this lesson, graduate students will be able to proficiently analyze chemical/material structures and their properties at atomic and electronic levels respectively. All are Welcome