 Research and Teaching Interests
My research program is interested in understanding the role that local structure and dynamics plays in controlling the physical and mechanical properties of a wide range of technologically and biologically important, but disordered, materials. Systems currently under investigation include spider silk fibers and biopolymers, protein clusters, polyamorphic materials, hydrogen storage complexes, inorganic liquid-crystals, nano-particles and quantum dots, battery and fuel cell materials. Most of this research is highly interdisciplinary and many projects involve collaborations with the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source and the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and with other faculty in Chemistry and Biochemistry, Materials Science, Physics and Molecular Biology. Central to ongoing research is the use and development of solid-state NMR and MRI techniques applied to elucidate local structure and dynamics in disordered materials.
 Several research projects in the group involve developing new NMR instrumentation and techniques. Specifically, our collaborative research team is working to develop and apply magic angle hopping electrochemical NMR (MAH-eNMR) to the characterization of fuel cell catalysts and battery materials under in situ conditions. This development is supported by the W.M. Keck Foundation center for eNMR. Also, in collaboration with the high-pressure research facility, our group is working to design new diamond anvil cell NMR probes for the study of materials under extreme conditions. Complimentary to the design of NMR materials characterization is the design of mechanical characterizing through the development of Brillouin Imaging and the combination of optically detected NMR instrumentation.
Our research group also contains an educational component that is currently working to modernize physical chemistry laboratory by (i) redesigning the curriculum to include biologically relevant material for biochemistry and bioengineering students, (ii) developing new multidisciplinary “modular” sets of experiments and online manuals, and (iii) developing inquiry based multi-week experiments. The modular laboratory curriculum is developed for free web-dissemination. Recently, we have been developing an interactive cell phone module that allows student-professor interactivity during lecture (via text messaging and powerpoint connectivity). Dr. Yarger also devotes time and resources to chemical education outreach for K-12 science programs.
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Representative Publications
"Solid-State NMR Investigation of Major and Minor Ampullate Spider Silk in the Native and Hydrated States," Holland, G.P.; Jenkins, J.E.; Creager, M.S.; Lewis, R.V.; Yarger, J.L. , Biomacromolecules 9, 651 (2008).
"Vibrational Dynamics of Amorphous Beryllium Hydride and Lithium Beryllium Hydrides," Sampath, S.; Kolesnikov, A.I.; Lantzky, K.M.; Yarger, J.L. , Journal of Chemical Physics 128, 134512 (2008).
"High-Pressure Behavior of As2O3: Amorphous-Amorphous and Crystal-Amorphous Transitions," Soignard, E.; Amin, S.A.; Mei, Q.; Benmore, C.J.; Yarger, J.L. , Physical Review B 77, 144113 (2008).
"Vitrification of a Monatomic Metallic Liquid," Bhat, M.H.; Molinero, V.; Soignard, E.; Solomon, V.C.; Sastry, S.; Yarger, J.L.; and Angell, C.A., Nature 448, 787 (2007).
"Brillouin Imaging," K. Koski and J.L. Yarger, Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 61903 (2005).
"Polymorphism in Liquids," J.L. Yarger and G. Wolf, Science 306, 820 (2004).
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