In Simple Terms

Our team explores how organic materials, which include plastics, diamonds, and biological proteins, combined together with inorganic materials traditionally used in the electronics industry can help solve society’s needs for more energy efficiency and computational power. Junctions between these ‘soft’ organic materials and ‘harder’ inorganic materials have unique properties that can be used in solar cells, nanoelectronic circuitry, opto-electronics and even batteries. Organic materials are of particular interest because they are much easier and cheaper to produce than silicon-based microelectronics, yet often suffer from reduced performance. By integrating the two together we may be able to obtain the best of both material classes, and achieve high-performance, low-cost devices.

Scope of Research

We focus on combinations of organic and inorganic materials that can improve energy harvesting, solar cell efficiency, battery storage capacity, optoelectronic circuits and scaling of microelectronics. These materials include carbon nanotubes, small molecules, metallic waveguides, polymer semiconductors, and even biological proteins. Our team is exploring how the fundamental structure and processing of these materials influences their behavior, particularly how electrically conductive they are. One example is a transparent electrode for solar cells. Traditionally indium tin oxide, a relatively expensive glass-like material is used to let visible light reach the active layers of the solar cell. An organic alternative based on carbon nanotubes can provide higher transparency, equivalent or better electrical conductivity, be lower cost and easier to process. By using sophisticated atomic force probes to measure the electrical potential within an operating nanotube electrode, our team is uncovering how the processing and mixture of tubes governs the electrical characteristics. Other topics include enhancing or diminishing the absorption of light within polymer-metal structures, either to amplify solar cell efficiency, or to create nanoscale optical switches for optical computing. Our biological thrust is exploring self-assembling proteins as a scaffold material that can change its morphology from 2D sheets into 3D structures with nanoscale precision, which may lead to three dimensional computer circuits and devices which have traditionally been limited to two dimensions.

Research Areas

The program is divided into two complementary thrusts of organic-hybrid and biological materials based upon our expertise in synthesis, processing, and characterization.

• Synthesis and organization of organic materials
• Device fabrication down to single organic monolayers
• Electrical characterization
• Optical plasmonics
• Self-assembly processes