The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) said on the 4th they selected Kim Dong-ha, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Nanoscience at Ewha Womans University, as the March recipient of the Korea Science and Technology Award.
The Korea Science and Technology Award is given to a researcher who has made major contributions to the development of Korea's science and technology over the past three years with original research achievements. One recipient is selected each month to receive the Minister of Science and ICT Award and 10 million won in prize money. Starting this year, the Ministry of Science and ICT changed the former title "Scientist and Engineer of the Month" to "Korea Scientist and Engineer of the Month."
Professor Kim was recognized for developing next-generation supramolecular chiral optical material technology, laying the groundwork to precisely control the properties of light at the nanoscale. The achievement is seen as broadening the potential applications in optics and nanotechnology.
Chirality here refers to a property where two objects resemble each other, like the left and right hands, but cannot be perfectly superimposed. This characteristic is a key factor that determines a molecule's function and performance. Polarization is a property where light vibrates in a specific direction, and by finely controlling it, it can be used in advanced technologies such as 3D displays, information security, and bioimaging.
Chiral optical materials have drawn attention, but polymer-based materials had the drawback of being vulnerable to changes in the external environment. Their structures deformed easily, reducing stability, and it was particularly difficult to stably realize red circular polarization in the visible region. This limited the development of circularly polarized light-emitting materials in various colors.
To solve these problems, Professor Kim's team proposed a new co-assembly platform using star-shaped block copolymers. Simply put, it was designed so that molecules self-assemble more stably and orderly. The team applied chiral additives and multiple hydrogen-bonding strategies so that chiral information at the molecular level would naturally transfer to and amplify in larger structures.
As a result, the team succeeded in forming a hierarchical structure in which the composite develops into nanobelts and microfibers, and implemented a system that maintained its shape stably for more than 100 days at room temperature.
They also embedded an achiral emitter into the platform to realize high-efficiency, full-color circularly polarized emission across the entire visible spectrum, including red. This showed higher emission efficiency than conventional polymer technologies, and its optical stability was demonstrated as performance did not decline even after repeated heating and cooling. The research was published in the international journal "Science" last Aug.
Professor Kim said, "This study is meaningful in that it identified the principle of how chiral information of microscopic molecules is transferred to and amplified in macroscopic supramolecular structures," adding, "We will continue to establish and share material design principles that can be applied across various fields."