B.S., Arizona State University (2001) Ph. D., University of Washington (2007) Postdoctoral Research Scientist, University at Buffalo (2008-2011)

Physical Chemistry

From light-based computing and communication to the environmentally-friendly and cost-effective conversion of light from the sun into fuels and/or electrical energy, understanding and controlling the interaction of light and matter remains one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century. With an emphasis on the study of light-matter interactions in crystalline materials, research in the Benedict lab involves the synthesis of novel materials and the development of new characterization techniques important to many areas of chemistry and physics:

Synthesis of functionalized polyoxotitanates as models for dye-sensitized solar cells. Developing novel metal-organic frameworks for gas storage and TR-XRD applications. Designing and constructing versatile microscopes for time-resolved spectroscopy and imaging and improved pumping in TR-XRD experiments. Exploring the effect of the local chemical environment on the nucleation and growth of photoproducts in solid-state chemical reactions and phase transitions.

The temperature dependent photoswitching of a classic diarylethene monitored by in situ X-ray diffraction. J. M. Cox, I. M. Walton, D. G. Patel, M. Xu, Y.-S. Chen, J. B. Benedict, J. Phys. Chem. A. accepted. (2015)

Extreme red shifted SERS nanotags SERS, M. A. Bedics, H. Kearns, J. M. Cox, S. Mabbott, F. Ali, N. C. Shand, K. Faulds, J. B. Benedict, D. Graham, M. R. Detty, Chemical Science, accepted. (2015. 2014)

An optical chopper for generation of short X-ray pulses to allow in-house time-resolved photocrystallography. R. Kaminski, J. B. Benedict, G. Nottingham, and P. Coppens, J. Appl. Cryst., 47, 1765-1768 (2014) **Correction*.

Patel, D. G. D.; Walton, I. M.; Cox, J. M.; Gleason, C. J.; Butzer, D. R.; Benedict, J. B. Photoresponsive porous materials: the design and synthesis of photochromic diarylethene-based linkers and a metal-organic framework. Chem. Commun. (Cambridge, U. K.) 2014, 50 (20), 2653-2656. DOI: 10.1039/c3cc49666j http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24473578

Olatunde, A. O.; Cox, J. M.; Daddario, M. D.; Spernyak, J. A.; Benedict, J. B.; Morrow, J. R. Seven-Coordinate Co-II, Fe-II and Six-Coordinate Ni-II Amide-Appended Macrocyclic Complexes as ParaCEST Agents in Biological Media. Inorg. Chem. 2014, 53 (16), 8311-8321. DOI: 10.1021/ic5006083 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24820102

Gleason, C. J.; Cox, J. M.; Walton, I. M.; Benedict, J. B. Polymorphism and the influence of crystal structure on the luminescence of the opto-electronic material 4,4 '-bis(9-carbazolyl)biphenyl. CrystEngComm 2014, 16 (33), 7621-7625. DOI: 10.1039/c4ce01056f

Walton, I. M.; Cox, J. M.; Coppin, J. A.; Linderman, C. M.; Patel, D. G. D.; Benedict, J. B. Photo-responsive MOFs: light-induced switching of porous single crystals containing a photochromic diarylethene. Chem. Commun. (Cambridge, U. K.) 2013, 49 (73), 8012-8014. DOI: 10.1039/c3cc44119a http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c3cc44119a

Kryman, M. W.; Schamerhorn, G. A.; Yung, K.; Sathyamoorthy, B.; Sukumaran, D. K.; Ohulchanskyy, T. Y.; Benedict, J. B.; Detty, M. R. Organotellurium Fluorescence Probes for Redox Reactions: 9-Aryl-3,6-diaminotelluroxanthylium Dyes and Their Telluroxides. Organometallics 2013 32 (15), 4321-4333. DOI: 10.1021/om400467s http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/om400467s

Bao, J.; Yu, Z.; Gundlach, L.; Benedict, J. B.; Coppens, P.; Chen, H. C.; Miller, J. R.; Piotrowiak, P. Excitons and excess electrons in nanometer size molecular polyoxotitanate clusters: electronic spectra, exciton dynamics, and surface states. J. Phys. Chem. B 2013, 117 (16), 4422-30. DOI: 10.1021/jp307724v http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23113586

Sokolow, J. D.; Trzop, E.; Chen, Y.; Tang, J.; Allen, L. J.; Crabtree, R. H.; Benedict, J. B.; Coppens, P. Binding modes of carboxylate- and acetylacetonate-linked chromophores to homodisperse polyoxotitanate nanoclusters. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134 (28), 11695-700. DOI: 10.1021/ja303692r http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22709348

Snoeberger, R. C., 3rd; Young, K. J.; Tang, J.; Allen, L. J.; Crabtree, R. H.; Brudvig, G. W.; Coppens, P.; Batista, V. S.; Benedict, J. B. Interfacial electron transfer into functionalized crystalline polyoxotitanate nanoclusters. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134 (21), 8911-7. DOI: 10.1021/ja301238t http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22548416

Singh, R.; George, D. K.; Benedict, J. B.; Korter, T. M.; Markelz, A. G. Improved mode assignment for molecular crystals through anisotropic terahertz spectroscopy. J. Phys. Chem. A 2012, 116 (42), 10359-64. DOI: 10.1021/jp307288r http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23039044

Patel, D. G.; Benedict, J. B. Tautomerism in 10-(hydroxyimino)phenanthren-9-one. Acta Crystallographica Section E 2012, 68 (10), o2871. DOI: doi:10.1107/S160053681203749X http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S160053681203749X

Patel, D. G.; Benedict, J., Crystals in Materials Science. In Recent Advances in Crystallography, Benedict, J., Ed. Intech: 2012.

Makal, A.; Benedict, J.; Trzop, E.; Sokolow, J.; Fournier, B.; Chen, Y.; Kalinowski, J. A.; Graber, T.; Henning, R.; Coppens, P. Restricted photochemistry in the molecular solid state: structural changes on photoexcitation of Cu(I) phenanthroline metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) complexes by time-resolved diffraction. J. Phys. Chem. A 2012, 116 (13), 3359-65. DOI: 10.1021/jp300313s http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22385365

Hammond, S. R.; Sinness, J.; Dubbury, S.; Firestone, K. A.; Benedict, J. B.; Wawrzak, Z.; Clot, O.; Reid, P. J.; Dalton, L. R. Molecular engineering of nanoscale order in organic electro-optic glasses. J. Mater. Chem. 2012, 22 (14), 6752-6764. DOI: Doi 10.1039/C2jm14915j

Aboulfadl, H.; Burgener, M.; Benedict, J.; Kahr, B.; Hulliger, J. Polar alignment of dye molecules in sectors of host lattices revealed by phase sensitive second harmonic generation and scanning pyroelectric microscopy. CrystEngComm 2012, 14 (13), 4391-4395. DOI: Doi 10.1039/C2ce25152c

Villar-Acevedo, G.; Nam, E.; Fitch, S.; Benedict, J.; Freudenthal, J.; Kaminsky, W.; Kovacs, J. A. Influence of thiolate ligands on reductive N-O bond activation. Probing the O2(-) binding site of a biomimetic superoxide reductase analogue and examining the proton-dependent reduction of nitrite. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133 (5), 1419-27. DOI: 10.1021/ja107551u http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21207999

Makal, A.; Trzop, E.; Sokolow, J.; Kalinowski, J.; Benedict, J.; Coppens, P. The development of Laue techniques for single-pulse diffraction of chemical complexes: time-resolved Laue diffraction on a binuclear rhodium metal-organic complex. Acta Crystallogr A 2011, 67 (Pt 4), 319-26. DOI: 10.1107/S0108767311011883 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21694470

Cao, D. K.; Sreevidya, T. V.; Botoshansky, M.; Golden, G.; Benedict, J. B.; Kaftory, M. Formation of different photodimers of isoquinolinone by irradiation of solid molecular compounds. CrystEngComm 2011, 13 (9), 3181-3188. DOI: Doi 10.1039/C0ce00489h