Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Affiliated Faculty Member Nanoengineering, Jacobs School of Engineering

Office: Pacific Hall 4224A
Phone: 858-534-6175
Email: wtrogler@ucsd.edu
Web: troglerlab.ucsd.edu
Group: View group members

1988

Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

1983-1986

Alfred P. Sloan Fellow

1980

Rohm and Haas Faculty Fellow

1977-1980

DuPont Young Faculty Fellow

1974

Phi Beta Kappa

Research focuses on new inorganic materials for chemical, biological and environmental sensing. One project focuses on the synthesis of new photoluminescent and electroluminescent silole and silafluorene trimers (Figure 1) and conjugated polymers. These materials are being applied to detecting high explosives and environmental toxicants by fluorescence methods. This enables detection of trace particles of explosives, which have applications in forensics.

There is a need for the development of inexpensive portable electronic devices for the specific detection of toxic chemicals, such as terrorist nerve agents, as well as for monitoring gaseous pollutants. In current collaborative research with professors Kummel (Chemistry), we are exploring physical vapor deposition of discrete transition metal complexes, as well as solution deposition methods, to construct chemical field effect transistors that function as chemical sensors. This research involves the synthesis of robust metal complexes that can be solution deposited as nanoscale films across electrodes for sensing in a chemFET configuration. Surface metal coordination of the vapor analyte controls the electronic sensor response.

In addition, we are exploring template approaches for preparing uniform hollow silica and titania nanospheres in the 100-3000 nm range (Figure 2) for ultrasonic imaging and cell sensor applications.

Materials
Synthesis

X-ray structure of trimeric chain of tetraphenyl(silole)s bridged through silicon with vinylene groups.

Uniform hollow silica nanospheres prepared by a templated sol-gel reaction on a polymer substrate, which was removed by calcination. The scale bar is 100 nm long.