Dr. Cho's research focuses on organ-on-chips, nanobiosensors for the study of neurosciences and cancer biology, innovative mechanical components evolving multiple physics, and portable platforms for healthcare diagnostics and environmental sustainability.
Preparative and physical organic chemistry, construction of complex fluorinated frameworks for molecular recognition or self-assembly with potential applications in sensing and sequestration; mechanistic investigation of the chemistry of unusual polycyclic scaffolds; extended (fluorinated) pi-systems as ligands in organometallic systems.
Resonance in nano systems; photophysics of low-dimensional systems; ultrasensitive detection of nanoscale and quantum systems; nonlinear and ultrafast optics and spectroscopy; nano-plasmonics; optical metamaterials; applications of the above endeavors in energy, biomedical, optoelectronics.
Quantum dots and nanocrystals; time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy; electron and energy transfer studies; exciton-plasmon interactions between metal and semiconductor nanoparticles; photophysics in light harvesting systems; solar energy.
Biophysical Chemistry. Structural information on bio/nano-molecular associations using spectroscopic techniques; in particular, light scattering (UV-VIS, X-ray and neutron), FTIR, Circular Dichroism and visualization of those associations through the use of molecular modeling.
Biological molecular motors. We study myosin, the protein responsible for force generation in muscle. We combine protein mutagenesis, labeling, and electron paramagnetic resonance and transient time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer to explore myosin functional dynamics on molecular and submolecular level.
Research area: experimental biophysics at nanoscale. We investigate how structure, dynamics, and interactions with binding partners define the function of a protein. The goal is to use this information for protein engineering and design of therapeutic compounds. We use a multidisciplinary approach, which includes advanced solution NMR and optical spectroscopy, molecular modeling, and basic biochemistry.
Studies of supramolecular systems “mechanically wrapping” about nanotubes, nanoparticles, and quantum dots. Elucidating energy and charge transfer mechanisms. Manufacturing nanomachines, nanosensors, nanotransducers and nanoparticle based composites for energy storage applications.
Synthesis of novel silicon containing compounds and materials, especially compounds or complexes in which silicon is used as a substitute for a carbon atom or a transition metal. Specific focus areas include redox-active hexacoordinate silicon complexes, silicon heterocycles, and silicon-based conducting polymers.
Professor Stokes’ research group investigates nanoscale materials for use in semiconductor optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes and solar cells. Materials are formed through traditional epitaxial growth (e.g. MOCVD), or through deposition of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots from solution.
Diffractive optics and refractive micro-optics; Fabrication and integration methods for micro/nano-optics and microsystems; Nanoreplication and nanomanufacturing; Free form micromachining; Biomimetic photonics; Applications of micro/nano structures for optical sensors, solar energy, bio-photonics, directed energy, and computational imaging.
Bacterial sugar polymer biosynthesis; functional studies of membrane bound proteins; development of probes to study biological systems. We utilize techniques in molecular biology, biochemistry, enzymology and organic synthesis to develop bioactive materials and understand the natural pathways responsible for them.
We are interested on the synthesis of novel hybrid nanodevices for biomedical applications. We develop nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems for cancer treatment. By engineering nanoparticles, we are exploring new routes of cellular internalization and intracellular trafficking pathways.
Processing and mechanical properties over a wide spectrum of loading conditions and length scales of nanostructured materials. Size effect of mechanical properties of various materials including crystalline metals, bulk metallic glasses. Constitutive behavior of natural and man-made nanocomposites. Dynamic properties of materials.
How structure affects function of nucleic acids, both biologically and in the performance of high-throughput assays, which are produced in genomics experiments and used by bioinformaticians as the basis for most network inference studies
Synthesis and characterization of one-dimensional nanostructures for energy conversion; Study of mechanical properties of individual nanostructures by nanoindentation and/or in-situ testing methods with a scanning electron microscope.
Novel materials (nanostructures, alloys, inorganic-organic hybrids) and device architectures for energy and related applications (photovoltaics, solid-state-lighting, photo-detector); Fundamental sciences in solid state physics and electrical engineering; Optical spectroscopy; Large scale first-principles and empirical electronic structure modeling.