The King Lab at the University of Chicago seeks to uncover how interfaces and nanoscale material heterogeneity determine the ultrafast dynamics, properties, and functionality of materials. Interfaces and boundaries between materials, phases, and structural motifs influences material suitability for applications such as photovoltaics or light emitting diodes and can fundamentally change chemical reactivity at surfaces and through mechanisms of heterogeneous catalysis. The King Lab is a leader in developing new methodologies for probing spatial heterogeneity and interfaces in materials and using cutting edge techniques to elucidate the interplay between intrinsic and defect-mediated material dynamics. Our work has been extended to unveil new ways that imaging techniques pioneered for solid-state materials have the potential to revolutionize ultrastructural biology and neuroscience.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S.
2010
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D.
2015
Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
Postdoctoral Fellow
2018
The University of Chicago
Assistant Professor
Calvin Raab, Janek Rieger, Atreyie Ghosh, Joseph L. Spellberg, Sarah B. King. "Surface Plasmons in Two-Dimensional MXenes"
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2024 15 (46), 11643-11656. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c02882
Ashley Arcidiacono, Cooper R. Johnston, Clare L. Keenan, Nasim Mirzajani, Anoushka Ghosh, Alexander S. Filatov, Sarah B. King. "Functionalization of Monolayer MoS2 with Layered Multimolecular Architectures" ACS Applied Optical Materials 2024 2 (9), 2011-2018
DOI: 10.1021/acsaom.4c00327
Ghosh, Atreyie, et al. “Polarization-Dependent Photoemission Electron Microscopy for Domain Imaging of Inorganic and Molecular Materials.” The Journal of Chemical Physics, vol. 161, no. 11, 16 Sept. 2024, DOI: 10.1063/5.0225765.
R. Li, G. Wildenberg, K. Boergens, Y. Yang, K. Weber, J. Rieger, A. Arcidiacono, R. Klie, N. Kasthuri, S. B. King, ChemBioChem 2024, 25, e202400311. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202400311
Joseph L. Spellberg et al. ,Electronic structure orientation as a map of in-plane antiferroelectricity in β′-In2Se3.Sci. Adv.10,eado2136(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ado2136
Nasim Mirzajani, Clare L. Keenan, Sarah R. Melton, and Sarah B. King, "Accurate phase detection in time-domain heterodyne SFG spectroscopy," Opt. Express 30, 39162-39174 (2022) DOI:10.1364/OE.473098
Prakriti P. Joshi, Ruiyu Li, Joseph L. Spellberg, Liangbo Liang, Sarah B. King. "Nanoimaging of the Edge-Dependent Optical Polarization Anisotropy of Black Phosphorus". Nano Letters 2022 22 (8), 3180-3186. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c03849
NSF Career Award
2025
NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award
2024
AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award
2022
Cottrell Scholar
Research Corporation for Science Advancement
2023
DOE Early Career Award
2021
Beckman Young Investigator
2020
Neubauer Family Assistant Professorship
2018
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
2015
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
2010
Kavli Fellow
King Lab pioneer technique to visualize anti-ferroelectric materials
John Anderson and Sarah King organize 3rd South Side Science Festival
Sarah King and Chicago universities team up to map the brain
Beckman Foundation revisits Sarah King's spectroscopic research