{"id":227019,"date":"2025-03-31T07:15:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T11:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=227019"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:24:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:24:39","slug":"crystal-visions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/03\/crystal-visions\/","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Visions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">In 2022, a multi-institutional team of American scientists traveled to Tokyo to take a spin on a high-powered X-ray laser.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Led by UConn chemistry assistant professor J. Nathan \u201cNate\u201d Hohman, they hoped to use the machine\u2019s unique capabilities to study new materials whose molecular structure had never been understood before. The team had been awarded 60 hours of highly coveted \u201cbeam time\u201d on the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free-electron LAser X-FEL laser (referred to as SACLA).<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cThey were going to let us squirt through the nozzle anything we wanted,\u201d Hohman says, \u201cas long as we told them the name of the chemical first.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The research team included five scientists working in chemical synthesis, X-ray crystallography, and AI-powered data interpretation \u2013 all prepared for the scientific equivalent of an ultramarathon. Once the machine powered on, they needed to work continuously until the 60 hours had elapsed.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cIf we ran out of stuff to shoot, we were going to be wasting those precious photons,\u201d Hohman explains. So<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">,<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\"> the team brought as many samples of new materials as they could.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_227055\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-227055\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-227055 size-large img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-1024x575.png\" alt=\"Two scientists wearing face masks investigate four computer screens showing a close-up view of a microscope imaging chamber\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-1024x575.png 1024w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-768x431.png 768w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-1536x862.png 1536w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-2048x1150.png 2048w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-630x354.png 630w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.30.21-1184x665.png 1184w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/575;\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-227055\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Moreau and a SACLA scientist working with the machine. (Courtesy of Phil MacDonald)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Working in round-the-clock shifts, they carefully prepared their samples and loaded them into the machine. SACLA shot jets of their crystalline molecular samples into a chamber where they were struck by an intense beam of X-ray light.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Like prisms throwing rainbows, these crystal samples diffracted the light, each into its own signature pattern. By analyzing the light pattern, the scientists could determine the precise molecular makeup of the crystals they were studying.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">By the end of their three-day journey with SACLA, the researchers had solved the structures of four materials \u2013 and have gone on to solve more than 50 in eight more experiments around the world over the last two years.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">This scientific breakthrough is chronicled in the new short documentary \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9gLLR004hpE\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">BEAMTIME: Crystal Hitters<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">,\u201d co-directed by Jonathan Turton and Phil MacDonald.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"BEAMTIME : Crystal Hitters\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9gLLR004hpE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Small Scale, Huge Payoff<\/h2>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">High-profile projects like this are nothing new to Hohman, whose research has been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/06\/how-uconn-researchers-are-working-to-solve-the-nations-energy-problems\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">sponsored by the US Department of Energy<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\"> for its potential to unlock new, better sources of energy.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Hohman doesn\u2019t work on the quantum technology side of things \u2013 using new materials to assemble devices like quantum computers and lasers \u2013 but the semiconductors he studies are integral to this process.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;Every new technology has a new material at its core,\u201d he says.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Hohman\u2019s specialty is self-assembly. His work revolves around understanding the geometry of molecules, planning how they crystallize, and using that to influence their properties. The materials he\u2019s interested in tend to form crystals at the microscopic level, thousands of times smaller than grains of sand.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Understanding the structure of these crystals \u2013 what&#8217;s known as \u201csolving\u201d the crystal structure \u2013 is the key to understanding how these materials can be used in technological applications spanning energy production, quantum computing, and beyond.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">A famous example of crystallography is Rosalind Franklin\u2019s discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. Since no microscope was powerful enough to allow her to literally see the double-helix, Franklin relied on X-ray crystallography to mathematically solve the structure.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">For this project, Hohman deployed a unique approach called small-molecule serial femtosecond crystallography, or smSFX.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cOur collaboration led the first-ever use of serial crystallography to fully solve true unknown crystal structures of small-molecule systems,\u201d Hohman says. \u201cThis solved a huge problem in our field \u2013 before, if you were making materials that formed small crystals, then you couldn\u2019t easily solve the crystal structure.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Before using this technique, Hohman jokes, \u201clife with my tiny crystals was mostly just despair.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The materials he was interested in studying \u2013 known as MOChas, or metal\u2013organic chacogenolates \u2013 would form crystals that were simply too small to solve using conventional methods. They possessed interesting properties, like luminescence, that seemed potentially useful in applications like solar cells or LEDs; but without understanding their molecular structure, scientists couldn\u2019t figure out how to harness these properties.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cYou can control all the photonic, electronic, and quantum properties of systems synthetically in the laboratory by editing a molecule or changing the design of that molecule,\u201d Hohman says. \u201cBut if you don&#8217;t know what the structure of something is, then all you have is a little pile of stuff that sort of glows when you shine a UV light on it.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The team\u2019s \u201cbig breakthrough\u201d was using smSFX to solve the structures of very small molecules. They are hopeful that this will pave the way for developing new materials for green energy and climate change mitigation technologies. Some of the materials they solved show potential for applications like solar power and carbon sequestration.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">More broadly, the smSFX technique could be used in future trials to analyze all manner of new materials, from quantum semiconductors to cancer treatments.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Hohman is now turning his focus to publishing the library of materials solved on this trip.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cThe materials are really quite cutting-edge; it\u2019s hard to say exactly what they will be used for,\u201d Hohman says. \u201cThe scientific community, collectively, is just starting to discover this stuff.\u201d But he notes that the materials his group has solved may offer \u201ca lot of material advantages\u201d for quantum information science.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Tokyo Shift<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_227051\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-227051\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-227051 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-300x168.png\" alt=\"A group of scientists in casual clothing sits at a small table sharing a meal\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-1024x574.png 1024w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-1536x860.png 1536w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-2048x1147.png 2048w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-630x353.png 630w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-11.33.20-1187x665.png 1187w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/168;\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-227051\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clockwise from center: Vanessa Oklejas, Nate Hohman, Aaron Brewster, Maggie Willson, and Masha Aleksich share a meal in Tokyo. (Courtesy of Phil MacDonald)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Hohman was joined on the 2022 trip to SACLA by colleagues from various institutions, including Aaron Brewster, Daniel Paley, and David Mittan-Moreau of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Elyse Schriber, a then-graduate student researcher in Hohman\u2019s lab who is now a project scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; and Vanessa Oklejas, who has moved to a new role at Lockheed Martin.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Three current members of Hohman\u2019s lab were also on the team: Maggie Willson, Patience Kotei, and Masha Aleksich, now third- and fourth-year doctoral students.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">For Willson, who received her bachelor\u2019s degree at the University of Central Oklahoma, it was her first time traveling out of the country.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">&#8220;That whole trip was very surreal for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI had graduated the May before that trip, so I hadn\u2019t even started grad school yet.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">As Hohman tells it, one of the first things he asked Willson to do after accepting her into his lab was \u201chop on a plane to Japan.\u201d Thankfully, she rose to the occasion \u2013 and gained experience that proved pivotal in her career path.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cAfter this trip, I have done seven more of these experiments (in CA, the UK, and another in Japan) and have dedicated the majority of my work here in grad school to these types of crystallography experiments,\u201d Willson says. \u201cBefore graduate school, I was planning on becoming a professor at a primarily undergraduate institution in order to focus on teaching, but I am now working towards a career at a synchrotron or an X-ray free electron laser in order to do these types of experiments for other research groups.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">For Kotei, who received her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees at the Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology in Ghana, the trip was similarly propulsive.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cMy graduate research primarily focuses on serial crystallography, and my visit to SACLA broadened my perspective on ultrafast dynamics and advanced structural characterization techniques,\u201d says Kotei. \u201cExperiencing world-class research infrastructure firsthand reinforced my motivation to pursue high-impact research. Currently, I am in discussions with leading scientists and experts at SACLA regarding potential research opportunities after completing my degree.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Aleksich, a fourth-year chemistry PhD candidate specifically focusing on MOChas, credits the trip to Tokyo with shifting her goals and her understanding of herself as a scientist.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cHaving the opportunity to conduct research at this level as a second-year graduate student really grew my confidence and took off any limitations I have had about the caliber of research I would be able to work on in my lifetime,\u201d she says. \u201cGrowing up, of course I looked up to the greats like Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin, but I figured that I was not qualified to truly advance the scientific field. But this experience showed me that if an idea is there, and it\u2019s able to be well communicated, then people are interested in funding it. And for every one great scientist we remember, there were hundreds who helped along the way.\u201d<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cBEAMTIME: Crystal Hitters\u201d is available to <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9gLLR004hpE\"><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">stream on YouTube<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A professor\u2019s laser-powered journey to solving new quantum materials\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":227054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2460,2673,2076,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-227019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-faculty","category-quantum","category-research","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-28 18:04:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227019"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227176,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227019\/revisions\/227176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/227054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227019"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=227019"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=227019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}