Nicholas Wright

Graduate Research Assistant

Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering

Nick Wright joined the ultrafast spectroscopy team as a Graduate Research Assistant in January 2022. Nick works under the direction of the ultrafast team leadership, with additional insight and guidance from Prof. Bill Knowlton and Dr. Bernard Yurke.

In his senior year of college, Nick researched the synthesis and characterization of barium-strontium titanate ceramics using a solid-state synthesis process and characterized these materials using Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Nick enjoyed the spectroscopy element of that research, which is what led him to the ultrafast spectroscopy team. While at Boise State, Nick has characterized the structure and dynamics of DNA-tethered asymmetric squaraine monomers using transient absorption spectroscopy. He also built a custom-designed UV-Vis spectrometer in the ultrafast laser complex used to characterize samples with arbitrary form factors.

Outside of school, Nick likes gravity-powered sports: skiing, mountain biking, whitewater kayaking. He also does a lot of camping.

Education

• •  B.S. in Physics, Colorado Mesa University (2019)

Publications

First-Author Papers

• Wright, N.D., Huff, J.S., Barclay, M.S., Wilson, C.K., Barcenas, G., Duncan, K.M., Ketteridge, M., Obukhova, O.M., Krivoshey, A.I., Tatarets, A.L., Terpetschnig, E.A., Dean, J.C., Knowlton, W.B., Yurke, B., Li, L., Mass, O.A., Davis, P.H., Lee, J., Turner, D.B., and Pensack, R.D. “Intramolecular Charge Transfer and Ultrafast Nonradiative Decay in DNA-Tethered Asymmetric Nitro- and Dimethylamino-Substituted Squaraines” J. Phys. Chem. A 2023, 127, 1141–1157.

Co-Author Papers

• Barclay, M.S., Chowdhury, A.U., Biaggne, A., Huff, J.S., Wright, N.D., Davis, P.H., Li, L., Knowlton, W.B., Yurke, B., Pensack, R.D., and Turner, D.B. “Probing DNA Structural Heterogeneity by Identifying Conformational Subensembles of a Bicovalently Bound Cyanine Dye” J. Chem. Phys. 2023, 158, 035101.

Presentations

• Wright et al. “Intramolecular Charge Transfer and Ultrafast Nonradiative Decay in DNA-Tethered Asymmetric Nitro- and Dimethylamino-Substituted Squaraines” FNANO (Poster), Snowbird, UT, 2023