Education

Post-Doctoral, Sandia National Lab
Ph.D, Vanderbilt University, 2003
B.S., University of Pittsburgh, 1998

Research in the Moore lab seeks to develop new synthesis strategies for the preparation of inorganic materials that exhibit desired chemical reactivity or interesting physical properties. There is a special focus on the preparation of nanocomposite materials in which nanoparticles of a desired material are highly dispersed throughout a solid matrix. At least one dimension of the nanoparticulate component is on the order of 1-20 nm. For most applications, single or dual source precursors are used and sol-gel chemistry is used for the preparation of the matrix materials. Instrumental methods routinely employed include powder x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), as well as traditional methods such as NMR, FTIR, fluorescence and UV/visible spectroscopy.