Rongchao Jin

About

Professor Rongchao Jin is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has served as Professor of Chemistry since 2015, following appointments as Associate Professor and Assistant Professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 2003 and completed postdoctoral research at the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago. His earlier education includes an M.S. in Catalysis from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a B.S. in Chemical Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China. Professor Jin has been recognized with several awards, including the International Precious Metals Institute Advisor Award, the Asian Rising Star Award from the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies, and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. His research focuses on fundamental science and engineering challenges related to the creation and application of nanomaterials, particularly nanoparticles ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers in size. He develops chemical methods to synthesize new types of inorganic nanoclusters and nanocrystals, hybrid nano-architectures, and inorganic/polymer nanocomposites, employing advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques for characterization. His work aims to understand and control the size, shape, structure, and composition of nanoparticles to tailor their physical and chemical properties for applications in catalysis, optics, sensing, and energy conversion. A central…

Research topics

• Materials science
• Chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Optoelectronics
• Organic chemistry
• Crystallography
• Physics
• Metallurgy
• Atomic physics
• Biology

Selected publications

• Toward Active-Site Tailoring in Heterogeneous Catalysis by Atomically Precise Metal Nanoclusters with Crystallographic Structures

  Chemical Reviews · 2020 · 736 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Heterogeneous catalysis involves solid-state catalysts, among which metal nanoparticles occupy an important position. Unfortunately, no two nanoparticles from conventional synthesis are the same at the atomic level, though such regular nanoparticles can be highly uniform at the nanometer level (e.g., size distribution ∼5%). In the long pursuit of well-defined nanocatalysts, a recent success is the synthesis of atomically precise metal nanoclusters protected by ligands in the size range from tens…

  DOI

• Atomically precise alloy nanoclusters: syntheses, structures, and properties

  Chemical Society Reviews · 2020 · 685 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Metal nanoclusters fill the gap between discrete atoms and plasmonic nanoparticles, providing unique opportunities for investigating the quantum effects and precise structure-property correlations at the atomic level. As a versatile strategy, alloying can largely improve the physicochemical performances compared to the corresponding homo-metal nanoclusters, and thus benefit the applications of such nanomaterials. In this review, we highlight the achievements of atomically precise alloy nanoclust…

  DOI

• Double-helical assembly of heterodimeric nanoclusters into supercrystals

  Nature · 2021 · 272 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Tailoring Carbon Tails of Ligands on Au₅₂(SR)₃₂ Nanoclusters Enhances the Near-Infrared Photoluminescence Quantum Yield from 3.8 to 18.3%

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023 · 110 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  nanocluster and the revealed mechanisms are expected to find future applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Structural distortion and electron redistribution in dual-emitting gold nanoclusters

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 94 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Deciphering the complicated excited-state process is critical for the development of luminescent materials with controllable emissions in different applications. Here we report the emergence of a photo-induced structural distortion accompanied by an electron redistribution in a series of gold nanoclusters. Such unexpected slow process of excited-state transformation results in near-infrared dual emission with extended photoluminescent lifetime. We demonstrate that this dual emission exhibits hig…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• DMREF/Collaborative Research: Designing Tunable Au-Based Bimetallic Nanocatalysts

  NSF · $287k · 2014–2017

• On the origin of plasmons in metal nanoparticles

  NSF · $800k · 2018–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Huifeng Qian

  Shaoxing Second Hospital

  91 shared

• Manzhou Zhu

  Anhui University

  90 shared

• Chenjie Zeng

  University of Florida

  85 shared

• Nathaniel L. Rosi

  University of Pittsburgh

  79 shared

• Zhikun Wu

  Chinese Academy of Sciences

  73 shared

• Yongbo Song

  63 shared

• Meng Zhou

  62 shared

• Gao Li

  Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics

  60 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Northwestern University

  2003

Awards & honors

• 2020 US National Science Foundation Creativity Award
• 2019 International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) Student…
• 2013 Asian Rising Star Award, Federation of Asian Chemical S…
• 2011 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award

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