Jonathan Huff
Graduate Research Assistant
Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering

Jonathan joined the Nanoscale Materials and Device Group in the Spring of 2017 after completing his undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Boise State University the previous spring. During his undergraduate career he served two summer research internships at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). At NIST he gained experience with tunable dye lasers, interferometry, and instrument programming with LabVIEW. The experience of contributing to research motivated him to return to Boise State in pursuit of a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering.
Jonathan is currently researching quantum coherence on DNA patterned dye aggregates. He works with other students in the NM&DG to characterize the optical properties of novel DNA structures. Most of the characterization is performed in the Boise State Nanophotonics Lab which houses an ultrafast spectroscopy system.
Outside of school, Jonathan enjoys seasonal outdoor activities like camping, hiking, and kayaking. He also enjoys photography, programming, flying Radio Controlled planes, and tinkering with electronics.
Instruments and Techniques
Light Sources:
- Coherent Mantis Oscillator
- Coherent Legend Elite Regenerative Amplifier
- Coherent OPerA Solo Optical Parametric Amplifier
Steady State Spectroscopy:
- Ocean Optics Flame-S-XR1-ES Spectrometer
- Varian Cary Eclipse Fluorescence Spectrophotometer
- Cary 5000 UV-Vis-NIR Spectrophotometer
Ultrafast Spectroscopy:
- Transient Absorption Spectroscopy
Laboratory Electronics:
- Oscilloscopes
- Lock-in Amplifiers
- Gated Integrators
- Spectrum Analyzers
- Function Generators
Software:
- Python
- Mathematica
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Origin
Publications
Peer Reviewed Journal Publications
- Huff, J. S.; Davis, P. H.; Christy, A.; Kellis, D. L.; Kandadai, N.; Toa, Z. S. D.; Scholes, G. D.; Yurke, B.; Knowlton, W. B.; Pensack, R. D. DNA-Templated Aggregates of Strongly Coupled Cyanine Dyes: Nonradiative Decay Governs Exciton Lifetimes. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2019, 10 (10), 2386–2392. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b00404
- Matthew S. Barclay, Simon K. Roy*, Jonathan S. Huff*, Olga A. Mass, Daniel B. Turner, Christopher K.
Wilson, Donald L. Kellis, Ewald A. Terpetschnig, Jeunghoon Lee, Paul H. Davis, Bernard Yurke,
William B. Knowlton, and Ryan D. Pensack, Rotaxane Rings Promote Oblique Packing and Extended
Lifetimes in DNA-Templated Molecular Dye Aggregates, Communications Chemistry, Accepted (2021).
doi: 10.1038/s42004-021-00456-8.
Conference Presentations and Posters
- Jonathan S. Huff, Paul H. Davis, Allison Christy, Donald L. Kellis, Nirmala Kandadai, Bernard Yurke,
William B. Knowlton, and Ryan D. Pensack, Optical Properties and Nonradiative Decay in Solutions
of DNA-Templated Dye Aggregates, poster presented at the 67th annual Pacific Conference on
Spectroscopy and Dynamics (San Diego, California; January 30th – February 2nd 2020) - Jonathan S. Huff, Paul H. Davis, Allison Christy, Donald L. Kellis, Nirmala Kandadai, Zi S. D. Toa,
Gregory D. Scholes, Bernard Yurke, William B. Knowlton, and Ryan D. Pensack, DNA-Templated
Cyanine Dye Aggregates: Nonradiative Decay Governs Exciton Lifetimes, , poster presented at the
67th annual Pacific Conference on Spectroscopy and Dynamics (San Diego, California; January 30th –
February 2nd 2020)
Honors and Awards
- Earned and maintained the Georgia Hope Scholarship from 2009 to 2011
- Earned and maintained the Zell Miller Scholarship from 2011 to 2012
- Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boise State in 2016
