Halas Research Group

Nanoengineered Photonics and Plasmonics

Rice University

Recent publications:

Oara Neumann, Yilong Ju, Andres B Sanchez-Alvarado, Guodong Zhou, Weiwu Jiang, Bhagavatula Moorthy, Melissa A Suter, Ankit Patel, Peter Nordlander, Naomi J Halas. Machine learning–enhanced surface-enhanced spectroscopic detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the human placenta,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2025, 122, 7, e2422537122

Jaekwan Kim, Christian R. Jacobson, Naomi J. Halas, and Ian A. Tonks. Controlling Cubic versus Octahedral Morphology in Plasmonic Aluminum Nanoparticle Synthesis with Titanocene Catalysts: A Systematic Study,  ACS Catalysis 2024, 14, 18429−18435

Parmeet Dhindsa, Silvia Marino, Alexander Ahrens, Nolan Craft, Yigao Yuan, Lin Yuan, Aliyu Ahmad, Aaron Bayles, Hossein Robatjazi, Phillip Christopher, Peter Nordlander and Naomi J. Halas. Light-Driven Dehydrogenation of Propane Using Plasmonic Al@TiO2 Core–Shell Nanoparticles with Pt Single Atoms and Clusters, ACS Energy Lett. 2024, 9, 6047−6054 

Our group is focused on four principal missions:

• 1. to design new optically active nanostructures driven by function

  2. to develop and implement new nanofabrication strategies to build, orient, and pattern these nanostructures into new materials and devices

  3. to characterize and understand the physical properties of these optically active nanostructures, devices and materials

  4. to prototype the use of optically active nanostructures in applications of potential technological and broad societal interest

A major goal of our research program is to produce PhD research scientists with significantly expanded skill sets and expertise who can develop new solutions to research and engineering problems beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.  For more information, click on the links in the sidebar.