Mas Subramanian, a chemistry professor at Oregon State University, made his
subject brighter when he developed a vibrant new blue pigment called YInMn
Blue. The nontoxic pigment gets its name from three elements—yttrium, indium,
and manganese. It generated wide excitement, even drawing the attention of auto
and paint manufacturers, not to mention the makers of crayons.
Tell me about your journey. What made you interested
in chemistry in the first place?
When I was finishing high school, I used to go to
the British Council, and one day I read a book about scientists.
I was really attracted by the example of Linus
Pauling, Nobel Prize winner and peace activist. It was
interesting that I share his birthday,
February 28. I was drawn toward
how he lived his life and became
fascinated by the chemistry
he had worked on, understanding
materials and their properties.
That was my early hook.
Your work came to our attention
because of your discovery of
a new blue pigment. You have
said that you have to be in the
right place at the right time and
also in the right mindset to make
discoveries. What do you mean
by that?
In science you can’t predict
everything. Nylon was discovered
by accident at DuPont, where I
worked for many years. Doing research is like a journey.
There’s a destination you want to reach, but you never
know what fascinating things happen along the way. I
was not looking for a blue pigment. I came to Oregon
State University to work with electronic materials.
The material I discovered, YInMn Blue, was
supposed to be a computer-related
semiconductor material.
But, as they say, luck favors the
alert mind. When my student
was making this compound with
indium and manganese-containing
compounds, I was in the lab.
When he pulled out a sample,
I saw this beautiful blue and,
at first, thought there was a mistake.
Manganese forming this
bright blue seemed unusual. We
needed to pursue this and see
what happened. So it turns out
that this compound made for
good pigment properties. I was
shocked when it became such a
big sensation, probably because
everybody in popular science knows that blue is really
difficult to make. We got so much attention because we
revealed a nontoxic approach to blue.
What is the next step? Where do you want to take
this?
I certainly have an ambition to make more discoveries
in the field of colors and pigments. Our immediate
goal is to find a red pigment which is nontoxic, just
like the YInMn blue, because most of the red pigments,
cadmium red for example, are toxic. Finding a red pigment
which is stable and nontoxic and can be used
everywhere will be a challenge. I still also have a goal
to find a room-temperature superconductor and do research
on quantum computing materials.
Tell me about what keeps you excited, about
what keeps you going in the lab.
After so many years, as a scientist, I really enjoy
the process of discovery. We are looking for things and
materials, which nobody knows exist yet. So what fascinates
me is holding something in my hand which
people are looking for and you were the first person to
see it because you made it. And also you understand
where the material comes from and how. For example,
I’m sure that a room-temperature superconductor
exists. We can design a compound from the periodic
table but it also takes imagination, creativity, and innovation.
You’re merging all of this in the lab.
What advice would you give to our readers? What
would you want them to take away?
You should never give up, because there is no
substitute for working hard. Luck is an important part
of the whole process, but luck alone does not play a
role. For every success, there are hundreds of failures.
We don’t talk about failures because they are not pretty.
To get one successful experiment, you have to undertake
those attempts to make the discovery. What we
do is like a journey. The journey is more important
than the destination. You may not reach the destination
you’re looking for, but the fact that you took the
journey itself is extremely important because you are
going to see things which you never expected.
Poornima Apte, a widely published freelance writer and book reviewer, is based in the Boston area. Learn more at WordCumulus.com.